The legend of Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak, and their adventures heroical, joyous and glorius in the land of Flanders & elsewhere

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The Legend of Ulenspiegel
andJ^amme

THE
LEGEND OF ULENSPIEGEL

AND LAMME GOEDZAK, AND THEIR

ADVENTURES HEROICAL, JOYOUS AND

GLORIOUS IN THE LAND OF FLANDERS

AND ELSEWHERE

BY

CHARLES DE COSTER

TRANSLATED BY
F. M. ATKINSON

VOL. I

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

V'IDM

London: William Heinemann.

'Beatrice de Holthoir

CONTENTS

BOOK I
BOOK II

25I

THE LEGEND OF ULENSPIEGEL

AND LAMME GOEDZAK

AND THEIR ADVENTURES HEROICAL, JOYOUS, AND GLORI-
OUS IN THE LAND OF FLANDERS AND ELSEWHERE.

BOOK I

I

WHEN May was unfolding the whitethorn blos-
som Ulenspiegel, son of Claes, was born at
Damme in Flanders.

A gossip midwife, by name Katheline, wrapt him
in warm swaddling clothes, and, looking at his head,
pointed out a caul on it.

"A caul! he is born under a lucky star!" exclaimed
she, rejoicing.

But in a moment, lamenting and displaying a little
black spot on the babe's shoulder:

"Alas," she wept, "'tis the black print of the devil's
finger."

"Master Satan has been getting up very early, then,"
rejoined Claes, "if he has had time already to put his
mark on my son."

"It was not yet his bedtime," said Katheline, "for
there is Chantecleer only now waking up the hens."

And she went away, putting the child in the arms of
Claes.

Then the dawn burst through the night clouds, the

VOL I. I B

2 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

swallows skimmed the meadows with shrill cries, and the
sun showed his dazzling countenance, bright and red
upon the horizon. Claes threw the window wide and
spake to Ulenspiegel.

"Son with the caul," said he, "lucky son, here is our
lord Sun coming to salute the soil of Flanders. Look
always on him whenthou canst, and whenever thou art
in a maze, knowing not what to do so as to do right, ask
counsel of him: he is bright and warm; be thou honest
as he is bright, and kind even as he is warm."

"Husband Claes," said Soetkin, "you are preaching
to deaf ears; come, drink, my son."

And the mother offered the newly born nature's
goodly flagons.

II

While Ulenspiegel drank of them, and called for no
cup, all the birds in the countryside awoke.

Claes, who was binding faggots, looked upon his wife
as she gave the breast to Ulenspiegel.

"Wife," said he, "have you laid up store of this
good milk?"

"The jars are full," said she, "but that is not enough
for my content."

"You speak piteously of so great a joy."

"Tis in my mind," said she, "that in the wallet you
see hanging by the wall there is not one poor patard."

Claes took the wallet in his hand; but in vain did he
shake it, no morning song of coin answered him from
within. Thereat he was chapfallen, but wishing never-
theless to hearten his good wife.

"Why do you vex yourself?" said he. "Have we
not in the hutch the cake Katheline gave us yesterday?

And Lamme Goedzak 3

Do not I behold a noble piece of beef that for three days
at least will make good milk for the babe? That sack
of beans squatting so snugly in the corner, does it
prophesy famine? Yon firkin of butter, is it a ghost?
Be they but phantoms, those bright platoons and com-
panies of apples ranged warrior-like in ranks of eleven
in the loft? Doth not that full-girthed cask of Bruges
cuyte, that in its belly keeps the wherewithal for our
refreshing, doth it not proclaim good drinking?"

"Needs must," said Soetkin, "when the babe is
borne to baptism, that we give two patards to the
priest and a florin for the feasting."

Therewith entered Katheline, holding a great sheaf
of plants in her hand, saying:

"I bring the lucky babe angelica, that keepeth
man from lewdness; fennel that putteth Satan to
flight. . . ."

"Have you not," said Claes, "gotten the herb that
conjureth florins?"

"Nay," quoth she.

"Then," said he, "I will even go see if there be none
in the canal."

Forth he went carrying line and net, being well
assured of meeting nobody, for it still lacked an hour
of the oosterzon, which is, in Flanders, the morning
sun of six of the clock.

Ill

Claes came to the canal of Bruges, not far from the
sea. There, baiting his line, he cast it in the water, and
let down his net. A little lad, well attired, lay upon the
other bank, sleeping like a log upon a clump of mussels.

The noise Claes made awoke him, and he would have

4 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

fled away, fearing it might be some sergeant of the
commune coming to turn him off his couch and hale
him to the Steen for unlicensed vagrancy.

But his fears ceased when he knew Claes and when
he heard him call:

"Would you like to earn six liards? Drive the fish
this way."

The lad on the word went down into the water,
with his little belly already showing round and puffed
up, and, arming himself with a tuft of long reeds, drove
the fish toward Claes.

His fishing over, Claes drew in his net and line, and
walking across the lock, came to the lad.

"You are he," said Claes, "whom they call Lamme
by baptism and Goedzak for your gentle nature, and
you live in the street of the Heron, behind Notre Dame.
How comes it, young and well clothed as you are, that
you must needs sleep on a public bed?"

"Alas, master coalman," replied the lad, "at home
I have a sister a year younger than I, who beats me
with heavy blows for the smallest wrangle. But I
dare not take my revenge on her back, for I should do
her a hurt. Last night, at supper, I was an-hungered
and cleaned with my fingers a dish of beef and beans in
which she meant to have a share. There was not
enough of it for me, master. When she saw me licking
my lips for the goodness of the sauce, she became as one
out of her wits, and beat me so fast and furiously that
I fled all bruised from out of the house."

Claes asked him what his father and mother did
during all this cuffing.

Lamme Goedzak replied:

"My father beat me on one shoulder and my mother

And Lamme Goedzak 5

on the other saying, 'Avenge thyself, coward!' But I,
not willing to strike a girl, fled away."

Suddenly Lamme grew pale and trembled all over.

And Claes saw a tall woman approaching, and by her
side a little girl lean and of a fierce aspect.

"Ah!" said Lamme, taking hold of Claes by his
breeches, "here be my mother and my sister coming to
find me. Protect me, master coalman."

"Here," said Claes, "first take these seven liards
for wages and let us go stoutly to meet them."

When the two women saw Lamme, they ran to him
and both were fain to beat him, the mother because she
had been anxious and the sister because it was her habit.

Lamme hid behind Claes and cried:

"I have earned seven liards, I have earned seven
liards, do not beat me!"

But already the mother was hugging him, while the
little girl tried with might and main to open Lamme's
hands to have his money. But Lamme cried:

" It's mine. You shall not have it."

And he clenched his fists tight.

Claes shookthe girl smartly by the ears and said to her:

"If you happen ever again to raise a brawl with your
brother, who is as good and gentle as a lamb, I shall put
you in a black coal-hole and there it will not be I that
pull your ears, but the red devil out of hell, who will
rend you in pieces with his long claws and his big forked
teeth."

At this threat the little girl, not daring now to look
at Claes or to go near Lamme, took shelter behind her
mother's skirts. But as she went into the town she
cried out everywhere:

"The coalman beat me:he has the devil in his cellar."

6 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

However, she never struck Lamme again; but being
tall, she made him work instead of her. And the kindly
simpleton did it with a good will.

On his way back Claes had sold his catch to a farmer
who usually bought it from him. And reaching home
he said to Soetkin:

"Here is what I found in the belly of four pike, nine
carp, and a basketful of eels." And he threw two flor-
ins and a patard on the table.

"Why do you not go a-fishing every day, husband?"
asked Soetkin.

Claes replied:

"Not to be fish myself in the nets of the constables."

IV

At Damme they called Ulenspiegel's father Claes the
Kooldraeger or coalman: Claes had a black fell, eyes
shining bright, a skin the same colour as his wares, ex-
cept on Sundays and feast days, when there was great
plenty of soap in the cottage. He was short, square,
and strong, and of a gay countenance.

When the day was ended and the evening shadows
were falling, if he went to some tavern on the Bruges
road, to wash out his coal-blackened gullet with cuyte,
all the women taking the cool air on their doorsteps
would call out a friendly greeting:

"Good even and clear beer, coalman!"

"Good even and a wakeful husband," Claes would
reply.

The lasses coming back from the fields in troops used
to plant themselves all in front of him so as to prevent
him from going on, and would say:

And Lamme Goedzak 7

"What will you give for your right of way: scarlet
ribbon, gilt buckle, velvet shoon, or florin in the
pouch ? "

But Claes would take one round the waist and kiss
her cheeks or her neck, according to which fresh skin
was nearest his mouth, then he would say:

"Ask your lovers, darlings, ask your lovers for the
rest."

Then they would go off in bursts of laughter.

The boys knew Claes by his big voice and the clatter
of his shoes. Running to him they would say:

"Good evening, coalman."

"God give you the like, my cherublings," Claes
would answer, "but don't come too close, or I shall turn
you into blackamoors."

The little fellows, being bold, would come close all the
same; and then he would seize one by the tunic, and
rubbing his soft little muzzle with his smutty hands,
would send him back like that, laughing in spite of it,
to the great delight of all the others.

Soetkin, Claes's wife, was a good helpmeet, early as
the dawn and diligent as the ant.

She and Claes tilled their field together, yoking them-
selves like oxen to the plough. Hard and toilsome was
the dragging, but harder still the harrowing when that
rustic engine must tear the stiff earth with its wooden
teeth. Yet always they worked light-hearted, singing
some ballad song.

And in vain was the earth stony hard; in vain did the
sun dart his hottest beams upon them: dragging the
harrow, bending at the knees, it was as naught that
they must strain their loins cruelly; when they would
pause, and Soetkin turn toward Claes her gentle face,

8 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

and Claes kiss that mirror of a tender heart, then, ah,
then, they would forget tneir utter weariness.

Last night it had been cried at the doorway of the
Townhall that Madam, the wife of the Emperor Charles,
being great with child, all men must pray for her speedy
delivery.

Katheline came to Claes's house all trembling.

"What aileth thee, gossip?" asked the goodman.

"Alas me!" she replied, and spoke brokenly. "Last
night, spectres cutting down men as reapers mow the
grass. Girl children buried quick! The hangman

danced on the corpse Stone sweating blood nine

months, broken this night."

"Have pity upon us," groaned Soetkin, "Lord God,
have pity: 'tis a black foreboding for the land of
Flanders."

"Sawest thou that with thine eyes or in a dream?"
asked Claes.

"With mine own eyes," said Katheline.

All pale and weeping Katheline spake again:

"Two boy babes are born, one in Spain, the Infante
Philip, the other in the country of Flanders, the son of
Claes who will in after days be surriamed Ulenspiegel.
Philip will become a butcher, being engendered by
Charles the Fifth, the murderer of our country. Ulen-
spiegel will be greatly learned in jests and pranks of
youth, but he will be kind of heart, having had to
father Claes, the stout worker that knew how to earn
his bread in courage, honour, and simplicity. Charles
the Emperor and Philip the King will ride roughshod

And Lamme Goedzak g

through life, working ill by battles, exactions, and other
crimes. Claes toiling all week long, living by righteous-
ness and law, and laughing instead of weeping in his
heavy labours, will be the ensample of all the good
workers of Flanders. Ulenspiegel ever young, and
never to die, will run throughout the world without
ever tying himself to any place. And he will be churl,
noble, painter, sculptor, all together and at once. And
through the world will journey in this wise, praising
all things good and lovely, and flouting without stint
all manner of folly. Claes is thy courage, noble
Flanders folk, Soetkin thy valiant mother, Ulenspiegel
is thy spirit; a darling sweet girl, Ulenspiegel's mate
and like him immortal, will be thy heart, and a fat
paunch, Lamme Goedzak, will be thy stomach. And
up aloft shall be the devourers of the folk; below, the
victims; aloft the thieving hornets, below, the toiling
bees, and in the skies shall bleed the wounds of Christ."
This much having said, Katheline the good spaewife
fell on sleep.

VI

They bore Ulenspiegel to baptism: on a sudden fell a
spouting shower that soaked him through. Thus was
he baptized for the first time.

When he came within the church, word was given
to godfather and godmother, father and mother, by the
schoolmaster beadle, that they were to range them-
selves about the baptismal font, the which they did.

But there was in the roof above the font a hole made
by a mason wherefrom to hang a lamp from a star of
gilded wood. The mason, spying from on high the god-
father and godmother stiffly standing around the font

io The Legend of Ulenspiegel

covered with its lid, poured through the hole in the
roof a treacherous bucket of water, which falling be-
tween them upon the lid of the font made a mighty
splashing. But Ulenspiegel had the biggest share.
And thus was he baptized for the second time.

The dean arrived: they complained to him; but he
told them to make haste, and that it was an accident.
Ulenspiegel was twisting about and kicking because of
the water that had fallen on him. The dean gave him
salt and water, and named him Thylbert, which sig-
nifies "rich in movements." Thus he was baptized for
the third time.

Leaving Notre Dame, they went opposite the church
in the rue Longue to the Rosary of Bottles whose credo
was a jar. There they drank seventeen quarts of dobbel-
cuyt, and more. For this is the true Flanders way of
drying drenched folk, to light a fire of beer in the belly.
Ulenspiegel was thus baptized for the fourth time.

Going home and zigzagging along the road, their
heads weighing more than their bodies, they came to a
foot plank thrown across a little pool; Katheline, the
godmother, was carrying the child, she missed her foot-
ing and fell in the mud with Ulenspiegel, who was thus
baptized for the fifth time.

But he was pulled out of the pond and washed with
warm water in the house of Claes, and that was his
sixth baptism.

VII

On that same day, His Sacred Majesty Charles
resolved to hold high festival to celebrate the birth of
his son befittingly. Like Claes he determined to go
a-fishing, not in a canal, but in the pouches and pock-

And Lamme Goedzak n

ets of his people. Thence is it that sovereign houses
draw crusadoes, silver daelders, gold lions, and all
those miraculous fishes that change, at the fisher's
will, into velvet robes, priceless jewels, exquisite wines,
and dainty meats. For the rivers best stocked with fish
are not those that hold most water.

Having brought together his councillors, His Sacred
Majesty resolved that the fishing should be done in the
following manner.

His lordship the Infante should be borne to baptism
toward nine or ten of the clock; the inhabitants of
Valladolid, to testify their joy, should hold revelry and
feast all night long, at their own charges, and should
scatter their silver upon the great square for the poor.

In five carfaxes there should be a great fountain
spouting until daybreak with strong wine paid for by
the city. In five other carfaxes there should be dis-
played, upon wooden stages, sausages, saveloys, botar-
goes, chitterlings, ox tongues, and all kinds of meats,
also at the city's charges.

The folk of Valladolid should erect at their own ex-
pense, along the route of the procession, a great number
of triumphal arches representing Peace, Felicity, Abund-
ance, Propitious Fortune, and emblems of all and
sundry gifts from the skies with which they were loaded
under the reign of His Sacred Majesty.

Finally, besides these pacific arches, there should be
set up certain others on which should be displayed in
bright colours less benignant emblems, as lions, eagles,
lances, halberds, pikes with wavy bladed heads, hack-
buts, cannons, falconets, mortars with their huge jowls,
and other engines showing in image the might and power
in war of His Sacred Majesty.

12 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

As for the lighting of the church, it should be gra-
ciously permitted to the Guild of Candlemakers to make
free gratis and for nothing more than twenty thousand
wax tapers, the unburned ends of which should revert
to the chapter.

As for any other expenses, the Emperor would gladly
bear them, thus showing his kindly determination not
to burden his people overmuch.

As the commune was about to carry out these orders,
lamentable tidings came from Rome. Orange, Alen-
9on and Frundsberg, captains of the Emperor, had
entered into the holy city and there sacked and spoiled
churches, chapels, and houses, sparing no living soul,
priests, nuns, women, children. The Holy Father
had been made prisoner. For a whole week pillage
had never ceased, and Reiters and Landsknechts were
wandering through Rome, stuffed with food, drunken
with wine, brandishing their weapons, hunting for car-
dinals, declaring they would cut enough out of their
hides to save them from ever becoming popes. Others,
having already carried out this threat, strutted proudly
through the city, wearing on their breast rosaries of
twenty-eight or more beads, big as walnuts, and all
bloody. Certain streets were red streams in which lay
heaped the rifled bodies of the dead.

Some said that the Emperor, needing money, had
determined to fish for it in the blood of the Church, and
that having taken cognizance of the treaty imposed
by his commanders upon the captive pontiff, he forced
him to cede all the strongholds in his states, to pay
four hundred thousand ducats and to be prisoner until
all was duly carried out.

None the less, great was His Majesty's grief; he

And Lamme Goedzak 13

countermanded all the joyous preparations, all feasts
and rejoicings, and ordered the lords and ladies of his
palace to don mourning.

And the Infante was baptized in white robes, the hue
of royal mourning.

And lords and ladies interpreted this as a sinister omen.

For all this, my lady the nurse presented the Infante
to the lords and ladies of the palace, that these might,
as is the custom, offer good wishes and gifts.

Madame de la Coena hanged upon his neck a black
stone potent against poison, the size and shape of a
hazelnut, with a gold shell; Madame de Chauffade
fastened upon him, by a silken cord, hanging down
upon his stomach, a filbert, the which bringeth good
digestion of all nourishment; Messire van der Steen of
Flanders gave a Ghent sausage five ells long and half
an ell in thickness, wishing that at its mere fragrance
His Highness might be thirsty for clauwaert in the
manner of the people of Ghent, saying that whoso lov-
eth the beer of a town will never hate the brewers;
Messire Squire Jacque-Christophe of Castile prayed my
Lord the Infante to wear green jasper on his tiny feet,
to make him run well. Jan de Paepe the fool, who
was there present, exclaimed:

"Messire, give him rather the trumpet of Joshua,
at the sound whereof all towns ran full trot before him,
hastening to plant themselves elsewhere with all their
inhabitants, men and women and babes. For mon-
seigneur must not learn to run, but to make others run."

The tearful widow of Floris van Borsele, who was lord
of Veere in Zealand, gave Monseigneur Philip a stone,
which, said she, made men loving and women inconsolable.

But the Infante whimpered like a young calf.

14 The Legend of U lens pie gel

At the same time Claes was putting in his son's
hands a rattle made of osier, with little bells, and said,
dancing Ulenspiegel on his hand: "Bells, bells, tinkling
bells may you have ever on your cap, manikin; for 'tis
to the fools belongeth the realm of good days."

And Ulenspiegel laughed.

VIII

Claes having caught a big salmon, that salmon was
eaten one Sunday by himself and by Soetkin, Kathe-
line, and little Ulenspiegel, but Katheline ate no more
than a bird.

"Gossip," said Claes to her, "is Flanders air so solid
to-day that it is enough for you to breathe it to be fed
as with a dish of meat? When shall we live in this
wise? Rain would be good soup, it would hail beans,
and the snows, transformed to celestial fricassees,
would restore and refresh poor travelling folk."

Katheline, nodding her head, uttered not a word.

"Lo now," said Claes, "our dolorous gossip. What
is it grieves her then?"

But Katheline, in a voice that seemed but a low
breathing:

"The wicked one," said she, "night is falling black —
I hear him announcing his coming — screaming like a
sea hawk — shuddering, I beseech the Virgin — in vain.
For him, neither walls nor hedges nor doors nor windows.

Entereth anywhere like a spirit Ladder creaking

He beside me in the garret where I sleep. Seizes me in
his cold arms, hard like marble. Face frozen cold,

kisses like damp snow The cottage tossed upon the

earth, moving like a bark on the stormy sea.

And Lamme Goedzak 15

"You must go," said Claes," every morning to mass,
that our Lord Jesu may give you strength to drive
away this phantom come from hell."

"He is so handsome!" said she.

IX

Being weaned, Ulenspiegel grew like a young poplar.

Claes now did not kiss him often, but loved him with
a surly air so as not to spoil him.

When Ulenspiegel would come home, complaining
of being beaten in some fray, Claes would beat him
because he had not beaten the others, and thus edu-
cated Ulenspiegel became valiant as a young lion.

If Claes was from home, Ulenspiegel would ask Soet-
kin for a Hard, to go play. Soetkin, angry, would say,
"What need have you to go play? It would fit you
better to stay at home to tie faggots."

Seeing that she would give him nothing, Ulenspiegel
would cry like an eagle, but Soetkin would make a
great clatter of pots and pans, which she was washing
in a wooden tub, to pretend she did not hear him. Then
would Ulenspiegel weep, and the gentle mother, drop-
ping her feigned harshness, would come to him, petting
him, and say, "Will a denier be enough for you?"
Now take notice that a denier is worth six liards.

So she loved him overmuch, and when Claes was not
there, Ulenspiegel was king in the house.

X

One morning Soetkin beheld Claes with head down
wandering about the kitchen like a man lost in his own
thought.

1 6 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"What grieves thee, husband?" said she. "Thou
art pale, wroth, and distraught."

Claes answered in a low tone, like a growling dog:

"They are going to renew the Emperor's cruel edicts.
Death will hover once more over the soil of Flanders.
Informers are to have the half of the victims' goods,
if the goods exceed not a hundred florins carolus."

"We are poor folk," said she.

"Poor," said he, "but not poor enough. There are
some of that vile crew, ravens and vultures living on
corpses, who would denounce us to divide a basket
of charcoal with His Majesty as well as a bag of carolus.
What had poor Tanneken, the widow of Sis the tailor,
who perished at Heyst, buried alive? A Latin Bible,
three gold florins, and some pewter pans that her neigh-
bour coveted. Johannah Martens was burned for a
witch, being first flung into water, for her body had
floated and they took it as a judgment of heaven. She
had some poor bits of furniture, seven gold carolus
in a purse, and the informer wanted half. Alas! I
could tell thee the like until to-morrow, but come, good-
wife, life is no longer worth the living in Flanders by
reason of these edicts. Soon every night will the char-
iot of death pass through the town, and we shall hear
the skeleton shaking in it with a dry clatter of bones."

"You must not frighten me, husband. The Emperor
is the father of Flanders and Brabant, and like a father
is endued with long-suffering gentleness, patience, and
compassion."

"He would lose too much by that," said Claes, "for
he inherits the goods that are confiscate."

Of a sudden sounded the trumpet and gnashed the
cymbals of the town herald. Claes and Soetkin, carry-

And Lamme Goedzak 17

ing Ulenspiegel in their arms turn about, ran to the
sound with the crowd.

They came to the Townhall, before which were the
heralds upon horseback, blowing their trumpets and
clashing their cymbals, the provost holding the wand of
justice and the procurator of the commune on horse-
back, holding in both hands an edict of the Emperor
and making ready to read it to the assembled throng.

Claes heard that it was thenceforward straightly for-
bidden, to all men in general and in particular, to print,
read, have, or maintain the writings, books, or doctrine
of Martin Luther, Johannes Wycliff, Johannes Huss,
Marcilius de Padua, ^Ecolampadius, Ulricus Zwinglius,
Philippus Melancthon, Franciscus Lambertus, Joannes
Pomeranus, Otto Brunselsius, Justus Jonas, Johannes
Puperis et Gorcianus, the New Testaments printed by
Adrien de Berghes, Christopher de Remonda, and
Joannes Zel, full of Lutheran and other heresies,
banned and condemned by the Theological Faculty
of the University of Louvain.

"In like manner neither to paint or pourtray, nor
cause to be painted or pourtrayed either opprobrious
figures of God and the Blessed Virgin or of their saints;
nor to break, rend, or efface the images or pourtraitures
made in honour, memory, or remembrance of God
and of the Virgin Mary or of saints approved by the
Church.

"Furthermore," said the proclamation, "no man, of
whatever station, shall put himself forward to discuss
or dispute upon Holy Writ, even upon matters that
are held in doubt, if he is not a theologian renowned
and approved by a great university."

His Sacred Majesty enacted among other penalties

VOL.1. C

1 8 The Legend oj Ulenspiegel

that suspected persons should ever after be incapable
of holding honourable estate. As for persons fallen a
second time into their error, or persons who were stub-
born therein, they should be condemned to burn by a
slow fire or quick, in an envelope of straw, or fastened
to a stake, at the discretion of the judge. Other men
should be executed by the sword if they were noble or
reputable burgesses, churls by the gallows, and women
by burying alive. Their heads, for a warning, should
be planted on spikes. And there would be confiscation
to the Emperor of the goods and chattels of all that lay
within the limits of confiscation.

His Sacred Majesty granted to informers the half
of all possessed by the condemned, provided their goods
did not amount in all to one hundred pounds in Fland-
ers money. As for the Emperor's portion, he reserved
to himself the right to employ it in works of piety and
alms, as he did at the sack of Rome.

And Claes went sadly away, with Soetkin and Ulen-
spiegel.

XI

The year had been a good one, and Claes bought a
donkey and nine measures of peas for seven florins
and one morning he mounted on the beast, and Ulen-
spiegel clung to the crupper behind him. They were
going in this fashion to salute their uncle and elder
brother, Josse Claes, who lived not far from Meyborg
in Germany.

Josse, who had been simple and kind in his youth,
having suffered various wrongs, became crotchety and
malicious, his blood turned to bile in his veins, he be-
came misanthropic and lived solitary and alone.

And Lamme Goedzak 19

His delight then was to make two so-called faithful
friends fight each other, and he would give three pa-
tards to the one that gave the other the hardest drub-
bing.

He loved also to bring together in a well-heated
room a great many old gossips, the oldest and crabbed-
est that could be found, and he would give them toasted
bread to eat and hypocras to drink.

Those who were more than sixty years old he gave
wool to knit in a corner, recommending them to let
their nails always grow long. And it was a marvel to
hear all the gurgling, the tongue clacking, the ill-
natured tattle, the thin coughings and spittings of
these old hags, who, with their knitting needles under
their armpits, sat all together nibbling at their neigh-
bours' good name.

Now when he saw them all animated and lively,
Josse would throw a hank of hair into the fire, and as it
flared up the air would all at once be poisoned.

The gossips then, all talking together, would accuse
each other of making the stench; all denying it, they
would very soon have each other by the hair, and Josse
would go on throwing more hair on the fire, and chopped
up horsehair on the floor. When he could see no
longer, by reason of the fury of the melee, the thick
smoke and the flying dust, he would fetch two of his men
disguised as constables, who would drive the old women
out of the hall, beating them soundly with long switches,
like a troop of angry geese.

And Josse would examine the battlefield, finding
strips of clothes, fragments of shoes, pieces of chemises,
and old teeth.

And filled with melancholy he would say to himself:

2O The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"My day is wasted, never a one of them has left
her tongue behind in the melee."

XII

Claes, being in the bailiwick of Meyborg, was going
through a little wood: the donkey as he travelled was
browsing on the thistles; Ulenspiegel was throwing his
bonnet after the butterflies and picking it up without
leaving the beast's back. Claes was eating a hunch of
bread, meaning to wash it down at the next tavern.
Far off he heard a bell clinking and the noise of a great
crowd of men all speaking together.

"Tis some pilgrimage," said he, "and the pilgrims
will doubtless be numerous. Hold on well, my son, to
the donkey, so that they may not knock you over.
Come and let us see. Now, then, ass, stick to my
heels."

And the ass began to run.

Leaving the fringe of the wood, he descended towards
a wide plateau bordered by a stream at the foot of its
western slope. On the eastern slope was a little chapel
with a gable surmounted by the image of Our Lady and
at her feet two little figures each representing a bull.
Upon the chapel steps, grinning with glee, were a hermit
shaking his bell, fifty flunkeys holding lighted candles,
players, blowers, bangers of drums, clarions, fifes,
shawms, and bagpipes, and a knot of jolly companions
holding with both hands iron boxes full of old metal, but
all silent at the moment.

Five thousand pilgrims and more went along seven
by seven in close ranks, casques on their heads, cudgels
of green wood in their hands. If there came fresh

And Lamme Goedzak 21

arrivals helmeted and armed in like fashion, they ranged
themselves tumultuously behind the others. Then
passing seven by seven before the chapel they had their
cudgels blessed, received each man a candle from the
hands of the flunkeys, and in exchange paid a demi-
florin to the hermit.

And so long was the procession that the candles of the
first were burnt down to the end of the wick while those
of the latest were all but choking with too much tallow.

Claes, Ulenspiegel, and the donkey, astonished, saw
thus passing before them an immense variety of bellies,
broad, long, high, pointed, proud, firm, or falling ignobly
upon their natural props. And all the pilgrims had
casques on their heads.

Some of these casques had come from Troy, and were
like Phrygian caps, or surmounted by aigrettes of red
horsehair; some of the pilgrims, though they were fat-
faced and paunchy, wore helms with outspread wings,
but had no notion of flying; then came those who had
on their heads salades that snails would have disdained
for their lack of greenery.

But the greater part had casques so old and rusty
that they seemed to date from the days of Gambrinus,
the King of Flanders and of beer, the which monarch
lived nine hundred years before Our Lord and wore a
quart pot for a hat, so that he need never have to re-
frain from drinking for lack of a cup.

All at once rang, droned, thundered, thumped,
squealed, brayed, clattered bells, bagpipes, shawms,
drums, and ironmongery.

At the sound of this din, the signal for the pilgrims,
they turned about, placing themselves face to face by
bands of seven, and by way of provocation every man

22 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

thrust his flaming candle into the face of his opposite.
Therefrom arose great sternutation. And it began to
rain green wood. And they fought with foot, with
head, with heel, with everything. Some hurled upon
their adversaries like rams, casque foremost, smashing
it down on to their shoulders, and ran blinded to fall on
a seven-fold rank of furious pilgrims, the which re-
ceived them ungently.

Others, whimperers and cowards, bemoaned them-
selves because of the blows, but while they were mum-
bling their dolorous paternosters, there whirled upon
them, swift as a thunderbolt, two sevens of struggling
pilgrims, flinging the poor blubberers to earth and
trampling them without compassion.

And the hermit laughed.

Other sevens, keeping in clusters like grapes, rolled
from the top of the plateau into the very stream where
they still exchanged shrewd strokes without quenching
their fury.

And the hermit laughed.

Those that remained upon the plateau were blacking
each other's eyes, breaking each other's teeth, tearing
out each other's hair, rending each other's doublet and
breeches.

And the hermit would laugh and call out:

"Courage, friends, he that smiteth sore but loves
the more. To the hardest hitters the love of their fair
ones! Our Lady of Rindisbels, 'tis here may be seen
the true males!"

And the pilgrims fell to it with joyous heart.

Claes, meanwhile, had drawn near the hermit, while
Ulenspiegel, laughing and shouting, applauded the blows.

"Father," said Claes, "what crime, then, have these

And Lamme Goedzak 23

poor fellows committed to be forced so cruelly to strike
one another?"

But the hermit, not giving ear to him, shouted:

"Lazybones! ye lose courage. If the fists are weary are
the feet? God's life! some of you have legs to run like
hares! What makes fire leap from the flint? 'Tis the
iron that beateth it. What blows up virility in old folk if
not a goodly dish of blows well seasoned with male fury?"

At these words, the pilgrims continued to belabour
one another with casque, with hands, with feet. 'Twas
a wild melee where not Argus with his hundred eyes had
seen aught but the flying dust or the peak of some casque.

Sudden the hermit clanked his bell. Fifes, drums,
trumpets, bagpipes, shawms, and old iron ceased their
din. And this was the signal for peace.

The pilgrims picked up their wounded. Among them
were seen many tongues swollen with anger, protrud-
ing from the mouths of the combatants. But they re-
turned of themselves to their accustomed palates.
Most difficult of all it was to take off the casques cf
those who had thrust them down as far as their necks,
and now were shaking their heads, but without making
them fall, no more than green plums.

None the less the hermit said to them:

"Recite each one an Ave and go back to your good
wives. Nine months hence there will be as many chil-
dren more in the bailiwick as there were valiant cham-
pions in the battle to-day."

And the hermit sang the Ave and all sang it with
him. And the bell tinkled above.

Then the hermit blessed them in the name of Our
Lady of Rindisbels and said:

"Go in peace!"

24 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

They departed shouting, jostling, and singing all the
way to Meyborg. All the good wives, old and young, were
waiting for them on the threshold of their houses which
they entered like men at arms in a town taken by storm.

The bells of Meyborg were pealing their loudest:
the little lads whistled, shouted, played the rommel-pot.

Quart stoups, tankards, goblets, glasses, flagons, and
pint-pots rang and jingled marvellously. And the good
wine rolled in waves down thirsty throats.

During this ringing, and while the wind brought to
the ears of Claes from the town, in gusts, songs of men
and women and children, he spake once again to the
hermit, asking him what heavenly boon these good folk
looked to win by these rough devotions.

The hermit answered, laughing:

"Thou seest upon this chapel two carven images,
representing two bulls. They are placed there in
memory of the miracle whereby Saint Martin trans-
formed two bullocks into bulls, by making them fight
with their horns. Then he rubbed their muzzles with a
candle and green wood for an hour and longer.

"Wotting of the miracle, and fortified with a brief
from His Holiness, for which I paid roundly, I came
hither and established myself.

"Thenceforward all the ancient coughers and big-
bellies in Meyborg and the country roundabout, per-
suaded by my arguments, were certain that having
once beaten one another soundly with the candle, the
which is unction, and with the cudgel, that is power,
they would win favour of Our Lady. The women send
their ancient husbands hither. The children born by
virtue of this pilgrimage are violent, bold, fierce, nim-
ble, and make perfect soldiers."

And Lamme Goedzak 25

Suddenly the hermit said to Claes:

"Dost thou know me?"

"Yea," said Claes, "thou art Josse my brother."

"I am," replied the hermit; "but what is this little
man that makes faces at me?"

"It is thy nephew," said Claes.

"What difference dost thou make between me and
the Emperor Charles?"

"It is great," replied Claes.

"It is but small," rejoined Josse, "for we do both
alike, we two: he makes men to slay one another, I
to beat one another for our gain and pleasure."

Then he brought them to his hermitage, where they
held feast and revel for eleven days without pause or
truce.

XIII

Claes, when he parted from his brother, mounted his
donkey once more, taking Ulenspiegel on the crupper
behind him. He passed by the great square of Meyborg,
and there beheld, assembled in groups, a great number of
pilgrims, who seeing them became enraged and flourish-
ing their cudgels they all suddenly cried out, "Scamp!"
because of Ulenspiegel, who, opening his breeches,
plucked up his shirt and showed them his nether visage.

Claes, seeing that it was his son they were threaten-
ing, said to him:

"Whatdid youdofor themto beso angry against you?"

"Dear father," replied Ulenspeigel, "I am sitting
on the donkey, saying no word to any man, and never-
theless they say I am a scamp."

Then Claes set him in front.

In this position Ulenspiegel thrust out his tongue

26 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

at the pilgrims, who, roaring, shook their fists at
him, and lifting up their cudgels, would fain have
beaten Claes and the donkey.

But Claes smote the beast with his heels to flee
from their wrath, and while they pursued, losing their
breath, he said to his son:

"Thou wert then born on a luckless day, for thou
art sitting in front of me, doing no harm to any, and
yet they would fain destroy thee."

Ulenspiegel laughed.

Passing by Liege, Claes learned that the poor Riv-
ageois were starving and that they had been placed
under the jurisdiction of the Official, a tribunal com-
posed of ecclesiastical judges. They made a riot de-
manding bread and lay judges. Some were beheaded
or hanged, and the rest banished out of the country,
such at that time was the clemency of Monseigneur
de la Marck, the gentle archbishop.

Claes saw by the way the banished folk, fleeing from
the pleasant vale of Liege, and on the trees near to the
town the bodies of men hanged for being hungry. And
he wept over them.

XIV

When he came home, riding upon his donkey, and
provided with a bag full of patards his brother Josse
had given him and a goodly tankard of pewter, there
were in the cottage Sunday good cheer and daily feasts,
for every day they had meat and beans to eat.

Claes filled often the great pewter tankard with
dobbel-cuyt and emptied it as often.

Ulenspiegel ate for three and paddled in the dishes
like a sparrow in a heap of corn.

And Lamme Goedzak 27

"Look," said Claes, "he's eating the saltcellar, too!"

Ulenspiegel answered :

"When the saltcellar, as in our house, is made of a
hollow piece of bread, it must be eaten now and then,
lest the worms might come in it as it gets old."

"Why," said Soetkin, "do you wipe your greasy
hands on your breeches?"

"So that I may never have my thighs wet," replied
Ulenspiegel.

At this moment Claes drank a deep draught from
his tankard. Ulenspiegel said to him:

"Why have you so big a cup, I have only a poor
little mug?"

Claes answered:

" Because I am your father and the baes of this house."

Ulenspiegel retorted:

"You have been drinking for forty years, I for
nine only; your time to drink is passed, mine is come;
it is therefore for me to have the tankard and for you
to take the mug."

"Son," said Claes, "he that would pour a hogshead
into a keg would throw his beer into the gutter."

"You will then be wise to pour your keg into my
hogshead, for I am bigger than your tankard," replied
Ulenspiegel.

And Claes, delighted, gave him his tankard to
drain. In this wise Ulenspiegel learned how to talk
for his drink.

XV

Soetkin carried beneath her girdle the signs of
renewed maternity; Katheline, too, was with child,
but for fear dared not stir out of her house.

28 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

When Soetkin went to see her:

"Ah!" said she, lamenting, "what shall I do with
the poor fruit of my womb? Must I strangle it? I
would rather die. But if the constables take me,
for having a child without being married, they will
make me pay twenty florins, like a girl of loose life,
and I shall be whipped on the marketplace."

Soetkin then said some soothing word to console
her, and having left her, went home pondering. Then
one day she said to Claes:

"If instead of one child I had two, would you beat
me, husband?"

"I don't know that," replied Claes.

"But," said she, "if this second were not born of
me, and like Katheline's were the offspring of an
unknown, of the devil, mayhap?"

"Devils," replied Claes, "engender fire, death, and
foul smoke, but not children. I will hold as mine the
child of Katheline."

"You would do this?" she said.

"I have said," replied Claes.

Soetkin went to tell Katheline.

Hearing it, the latter cried out, overjoyed.

" He has spoken, good man, spoken for the sake of my
poor body. He will be blessed by God, and blessed of
the devil, if it is a devil," she said, shuddering, "that
hath made thee, poor babe that movest in my bosom."

Soetkin and Katheline brought into the world one
a lad, the other a girl. Both were borne to baptism,
as son and daughter of Claes. Soetkin's son was
named Hans, and did not live, Katheline's daughter
was named Nele and throve well.

She drank the wine of life from four flagons, two

And Lamme Goedzak 29

of Katheline and two of Soetkin. And the two women
quarrelled softly which should give the babe to drink.
But against her desire Katheline must needs allow her
milk to dry up, so that none might ask whence it came
without her having been a mother.

When little Nele, her daughter, was weaned, she
took her home and only let the child go to Soetkin's
when she had called her her mother.

The neighbours said it was well done of Katheline,
who was well to do, to feed the child of the Claes, who
for the most part lived in poverty their toilsome life.

XVI

Ulenspiegel found himself alone one morning at
home, and for want of something better to do, he
began to cut up one of his father's shoes to make
a little ship. Already he had planted the mainmast
in the sole and bored the toe for the bowsprit, when
at the half door he saw passing the bust of a horseman
and the head of a horse.

"Is any one within?" asked the horseman.

"There are," replied Ulenspiegel, "a man and a
half and a horse's head."

"How so?" asked the horseman.

"Because I see here a whole man, which is me;
the half of a man, which is your bust; and a horse's
head, which is that of your steed."

"Where are your father and your mother?" asked
the man.

"My father has gone to make bad worse," replied
Ulenspiegel, "and my mother is engaged in bringing
us shame or loss."

30 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Explain," said the horseman.

Ulenspiegel answered:

"My father at this moment is deepening the holes
in his field so as to bring from bad to worse the hunts-
men who trample down his corn. My mother has
gone to borrow money: if she repays too little 'twill
shame us, if too much 'twill be our loss."

The man asked then which way he should go.

"Where the geese are," replied Ulenspiegel.

The man went away and came back just when
Ulenspiegel was making an oared galley out of Claes's
other shoe.

"You have misled me," said he: "where the geese
are is nothing but mud and marsh in which they are
paddling."

Ulenspiegel answered to this:

"I did not tell you to go where the geese paddle, but
where they go."

"Show me, at any rate," said the man, "a road that
goes to Heyst."

"In Flanders, it is the travellers that go and not
the roads," said Ulenspiegel.

XVII

One day Soetkin said to Claes:

"Husband, my heart is sad : it is now three days since
Thyl left the house; dost thou not know where he is?"

Claes replied ruefully:

"He is where homeless dogs are, on some highway
with a crew of other vagabonds of his own kidney.
God was cruel to give us such a son. When he was
born, I beheld in him the joy of our age, a tool more

And Lamme Goedzak 31

in the house; I looked to make a craftsman of him,
and wicked fate makes him a thief and a drone."

"Be not so hard, husband," said Soetkin, "our son
being but nine years old is in the heyday of childish
thoughtlessness and folly. Is it not so that like the
trees, he must shed the young buds before the coming
of the full leaves, which for the human tree are honour
and virtue? He is full of tricks, I am not blind to
them, but they will turn later to his advantage, if
instead of employing them to ill ends, he applies
them to some useful trade. He is prone to flout his
neighbours; but later this will help him to hold his
own in merry company. He laughs ever and always;
but faces sour before they are ripe are an ill omen
for the countenance to come. If he runs, 'tis that
he must grow; if he does not work, it is for that he is
not yet of an age to feel that work is duty, and if
now and then he spends day and night away from
home for half a week together, 'tis that he knows noth-
ing of what grief he gives us, for he has a good heart,
and he loves us."

Claes wagged his head and made no answer, and
while he slept, Soetkin wept alone. And in the morn-
ing, thinking that her son was sick in a corner of some
highway, she went out on the doorstep to see if he
was not coming back; but she saw nothing, and she
sate near the window, looking thence into the street.
And many a time her heart danced in her bosom at
the sound of the light foot of some lad; but when he
passed, she saw it was not Ulenspiegel, and then
she wept, poor dolorous mother.

In the meanwhile, Ulenspiegel with his vagabond
companions was at Bruges, at the Saturday fair.

32 The Legend of V lens-pie gel

There might be seen cobblers and shoemakers
in booths apart, tailors selling clothes, miesevangers
from Antwerp, who catch tits with an owl at night;
poultry sellers, dog stealers, vendors of catskins for
gloves, waistcoats, and doublets, buyers of every
kind and condition, burgesses and their womenfolk,
menservants and maidservants, pantlers, butlers, and
all together, sellers and buyers, crying up and crying
down, vaunting and disparaging the wares.

In one corner of the fair there was a fine canvas
tent erected on four poles. At the door of the tent,
a churl from the flat country of Alost, with two
monks who were there to get something for them-
selves, was showing the curious devout, for a patard,
a piece of the shoulder blade of Saint Mary of Egypt.
Hoarsely he bawled out the saint's merits, and omit-
ted not from his song how, having no silver, she
paid a young ferryman in kind, so as not to sin
again the Holy Ghost by refusing the labourer his
hire.

And the two monks nodded their heads to show
that what the churl said was true. By them was a
woman fat and ruddy, lascivious as Astarte, violently
inflating a wretched bagpipe, while a pretty young
girl sang beside her like a nightingale; but no one
listened to her. Above the entrance to the tent
was hung on two poles, held by cords in the
two handles, a bucket full of holy water that had
been blessed in Rome, according to the fat woman,
while the two monks waggled head to bear witness
to her tale. Ulenspiegel, beholding the bucket, be-
came pensive.

To one of the poles supporting the tent was fastened

And Lamme Goedzak 33

a donkey that was fed more upon hay than on oats:
head down it was gazing at the earth, with no hope
of seeing thistles spring up from it.

"Comrades," said Ulenspiegel, pointing with his
finger at the fat woman, the two monks, and the ass,
"since the masters sing so sweetly, we must make
the donkey dance as well."

So saying, he went off to the next booth, bought
six Hards' worth of pepper, pulled up the donkey's tail
and clapped the pepper underneath.

The donkey, feeling the pepper at work, looked
round under his tail to see -whence proceeded this
unwonted heat. Thinking he had a red-hot devil
there, he would fain run away to escape him, began
to bray and rear, and shook the tent pole with all
his might. At the first shock, the tub between the
two poles spilled all its holy water on the tent and on
those who were within it. And presently collapsing,
the tent covered with a moist mantle those who were
hearkening to the history of Mary of Egypt. And
from under the canvas Ulenspiegel and his com-
panions heard a great noise of moaning and lamenting,
for the devout who were there were wild with anger
and exchanged furious thwacks and thumps with
one another. The canvas rose and fell at the struggles
of the combatants. Every time Ulenspiegel saw
a roundness shape itself under the cloth, he stuck
a needle into it. Then there were louder shrieks
beneath the canvas and a more liberal distribution
of thwackings.

And he was transported, but more still seeing the
donkey fleeing and dragging behind him tent, tub,
and poles, while the baes of the tent, his wife and
VOL.I. D

34 The Legend of U lens pie gel

his daughter, hung desperately on to the baggage.
The donkey, which could run no longer, lifted his
head into the air and ceased not to sing, except in
order to look beneath his tail to see if the fire there
burning would not soon be extinguished.

All this while the devout were going on with their
battle; the monks, without giving them a thought,
were picking up the money that had fallen from the
collecting dishes, and Ulenspiegel was helping them,
most devoutly, not without profiting.

XVIII

Whilst the vagabond son of the coalman was
growing up gay and frolicsome, in lean melancholy
vegetated the dolorous scion of the sublime Emperor.
Lords and ladies saw the pitiful little weakling dragging
through the rooms and corridors of Valladolid his frail
body and his tottering limbs that could scarce sustain
the weight of his big head, covered with fair stiff hair.

Ever seeking out the darkest corridors, there he
would sit for hours thrusting out his legs in front
of him. If a servant trod on him by accident, he
had the man flogged, and took pleasure in hearing
him cry out under the lashes, but he never laughed.

The next day, going elsewhere to set the same trap,
he would sit again in some corridor with his legs thrust
out. The ladies, lords, and pages who might pass
there going fast or slow would trip over him, fall down
and hurt themselves. He took pleasure in this, also,
t}ut he never laughed.

When one of them, having run into him, failed
to fall, he would cry out as if he had been struck,

And Lamme Goedzak 35

and he was delighted to see their fear, but he never
laughed.

His Sacred Majesty was informed of his behaviour
and gave orders to take no notice of the boy, saying
that if he did not wish to have his legs trodden on,
he ought not to put them in the way of people's feet.

This angered Philip, but he said nothing, and no
one saw him after, except when on bright summer
days he went to warm his shivering body in the sun-
shine in the courtyard.

One day, coming back from the wars, Charles
saw him steeped in melancholy in this fashion.

"Son," said he, "how different art thou from me!
At thy age, I loved to climb among trees to hunt the
squirrels; I had myself lowered by a rope down some
steep cliff to take eaglets from the nest. At this
play I might have left my bones behind me; they but
became the harder for it. In the chase the wild things
fled to their dens when they saw me coming with my
good arquebus."

"Ah," sighed the boy, "I have a pain in the belly,
monseigneur my father."

"The wine of Paxaretos," said Charles, "is a sov-
ereign cure."

"I do not like wine; my head aches, monseigneur
my father."

"Son," said Charles, "thou must run and leap and
romp as do other boys of thine own years."

"My legs are stiff, monseigneur my father."

"How," said Charles, "how can they be otherwise
if thou usest them no more than if they were legs c f
wood ? I will have thee fastened on some nimble steed.'

The boy wept.

36 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Do not so," said he, "I have a pain in my loins,
monseigneur my father."

"But," said Charles, "you have a pain everywhere
then?"

"I would not be ill at all if I were left in peace,"
replied the child.

"Dost thou think," rejoined the Emperor, im-
patiently, "to pass thy royal life in brooding as do
clerks? For them, if it must be, in order that they
may soil their parchments with ink, from the silence,
solitude, and retirement; for thee, son of the sword,
there needs hot blood, the eye of a lynx, the cunning
of the fox, the strength of Hercules. Why dost thou
make the holy sign? God's blood! 'tis not for the
lion's cub to ape paternoster-mongering females."

"Hark, the Angelus, monseigneur my father," re-
plied the child.

XIX

This year May and June were verily the months of
flowers. Never did any see in Flanders hawthorn
so fragrant, never in the gardens so many roses, such
heaps of jasmine and honeysuckle. When the wind
that blew up out of England drove the incense of
this flowery land towards the east, every man, and
specially in Antwerp, nose in air with delight, would say:

"Do you smell the sweet wind that comes from
Flanders?"

In like wise the busy bees sucked the flowers' honey,
made wax, laid their eggs in hives too small to harbour
their swarms. What music of labour under the blue
sky that covered the rich earth with its dazzling tent!

Men made hives out of rushes, of straw, of osiers,

And Lamme Goedzak 37

of plaited hay. Basketmakers, tubmakers, coopers
were wearing out their tools over the work. As for
the wood carvers, for a long time they had been un-
equal to the task.

The swarms were of full thirty thousand bees and
two thousand seven hundred drones. The honey-
combs were so delicious that because of their rare
quality, the dean of Damme sent eleven to the Em-
peror Charles, by way of thanks for having through
his edicts restored the Holy Inquisition to all its full
vigour. It was Philip that ate them, but they did
him no good.

Tramps, beggars, vagabonds, and all that ragtag
and bobtail of idle rogues that parade their laziness
about the roads, preferring to be hanged rather than
to work, enticed by the taste of the honey, came to
get their share of it. And they prowled about by
night, in crowds.

Claes had made hives to attract the swarming bees
to them; some were full and others empty, awaiting
the bees. Claes used to watch all night to guard this
sugared wealth. When he was tired, he used to bid
Ulenspiegel take his place. And the boy did so with
a good will.

Now one night Ulenspiegel, to avoid the cold air,
had taken shelter in a hive, and, all huddled up, was
looking through the openings, of which there were
two, in the top of the hive.

As he was on the point of falling asleep, he heard
the little trees and bushes of the hedge crackling and
heard the voices of two men whom he took to be rob-
bers. He looked out through one of the openings in
the hive, and saw that they both had long hair and

38 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

a long beard, though the beard was the mark and
sign of noble rank.

They went from hive to hive, and came to his own,
and picking it up, they said:

"Let us take this one: it is the heaviest."

Then they carried it off, using their sticks to do
it. Ulenspiegel took no pleasure in being thus carted
in a hive. The night was clear and bright, and the
thieves walked along without uttering a word.
Every fifty paces they stopped, clean out of breath,
to go on their way again presently. The one in front
grumbled furiously at having so heavy a weight to
bear, and the one behind whimpered melancholy-wise.
For in this world there are two kinds of idle cowards,
those who grow angry with work, and those that whine
when there is work to be done.

Ulenspiegel, having nothing else to do, pulled the
hair of the robber who went in front, and the beard
of the one behind, so that growing tired of this game,
the angry one said to the snivelling one:

"Stop pulling my hair, or I will give you such a
wallop on the head with my fist that it will sink down
into your chest and you will look through your ribs
like a thief through the bars of his prison."

"I wouldn't dare, my friend," said the sniveller,
"but it is you that are pulling me by the beard."

The angry one answered:

"I don't go hunting vermin in beggar fellows' fur."

"Sir," replied the sniveller, "do not make the hive
jump about so much; my poor arms are nearly breaking
in two."

"I'll have them off altogether," answered the angry
fellow.

And Lamme Goedzak 39

Then, putting off his leathern gear he set the hive
down on the ground, and leaped upon his comrade. And
they fought with each other, the one cursing and
swearing, the other crying for mercy.

Ulenspiegel, hearing the blows pattering down,
came out of the hive, dragged it with him as far as
the nearest wood so as to find it there again, and
went back to Claes's house.

And thus it is that in quarrellings sly folk find their
advantage.

XX

When he was fifteen, Ulenspiegel erected a little
tent at Damme upon four stakes, and he cried out that
everyone might see within, represented in a handsome
frame of hay, his present and future self.

When there came a man of law, haughty and puffed
up with his own importance, Ulenspiegel would thrust
his head out of the frame, and mimicking the face
of an old ape, he would say:

"An old mug may decay, but never flourish; am
I not your very mirror, good sir of the doctoral phiz?"

If he had a stout soldier for client, Ulenspiegel
would hide and show in the middle of the frame,
instead of his face, a dishful of meat and bread, and
say:

"Battle will make hash of you; what will you give
me for my prophecy, O soldier beloved of the big-
mouthed sakers?"

When an old man, wearing ingloriously his hoary
head, would bring Ulenspiegel his wife, a young woman,
the boy, hiding himself as he had done for the soldier,
and showing in the frame a little tree, on whose branches

4O The Legend of Ulenspiegel

were hung knife handles, caskets, combs, inkhorns, all
made of horn, would call out:

"Whence come all these fine nicknacks, Messire?
Is it not from the hornbeam that groweth within
the garden of old husbands? Who shall say now that
cuckolds are folk useless in a commonweal?"

And Ulenspiegel would display his young face in
the frame alongside the tree.

The old man, hearing him, would cough with mascu-
line anger, but his dear wife would soothe him with
her hand, and smiling, come up to Ulenspiegel.

"And my mirror," she would say, "wilt thou show
it to me?"

"Come closer," Ulenspiegel would answer.

She would obey, and he then, kissing her wherever
he could :

"Thy mirror," he would say, "is stark youth with
proud codpiece."

And the darling would go away also, but not without
giving him florins one or two.

To the fat, blear-eyed monk who would ask to see
his present and future self, Ulenspiegel would answer:

"Thou art a ham cupboard, and so thou shalt be
a still room for cervoise ale; for salt calleth upon
drinking, is not this true, great belly? Give me a
patard for not having lied."

"My son," the monk would reply, "we never carry
money."

"'Tis then the money carries thee," would Ulen-
spiegel answer, "for I know thou dost put it between
two soles under thy feet. Give me thy sandal."

But the monk:

"My son, 'tis the property of the Convent; I will

And Lamme Goedzak 41

none the less take from it, if I must, two patards for
thy trouble."

The monk gave them. Ulenspiegel received them
graciously.

Thus showed he their mirror to the folk of Damme,
of Bruges, of Blankenberghe, nay, even as far away
as Ostend.

And instead of saying to them in his Flemish speech:
"Ik ben u lieden Spiegel," "I am your mirror," he
said to them, shortening it, "Ik ben ulen Spiegel" even
as it is still said to-day in East and West Flanders.

And from thence there came to him his surname
of Ulenspiegel.

XXI

As he grew up, he conceived a liking for wandering
about through fairs and markets. If he saw there any
one playing on the hautbois, the rebeck, or the bag-
pipes, he would, for a patard, have them teach him the
way to make music on these instruments.

He became above all skilled in playing on the rom-
mel-pot, an instrument made of a pot, a bladder, and
a stout straw. This is how he arranged them: he
damped the bladder and strained it over the pot,
fastened with a string the middle of the bladder round
the knot on the straw, which was touching the bottom
of the pot, on the rim of which he then fixed the bladder
stretched to bursting point. In the morning, the
bladder, being dried, gave the sound of a tambourine
when it was struck, and if the straw of the instrument
was rubbed it hummed better than a viol. And Ulen-
spiegel, with his pot booming and sounding like a
mastiff's barking, went singing carols ^it house doors

42 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

in company with youngsters, one of whom carried
the shining star made out of paper on Twelfth
Night.

If any master painter came to Damme to pourtray,
on their knees on canvas, the companions of some
Guild, Ulenspiegel, desiring to see how he wrought,
would ask to be allowed to grind his colours, and for
all salary would accept only a slice of bread, three
Hards, and a pint of ale.

Applying himself to the grinding, he would study
his master's manner. When the master was away,
he would try to paint like him, but put vermilion
everywhere. He tried to paint Claes, Soetkin,
Katheline, and Nele, as well as quart pots and sauce-
pans. Claes prophesied to him, seeing his works,
that if he would be bold and persevering, he might
one day earn florins by the score, painting inscriptions
on the sped-wagen, which are pleasure carts in Flan-
ders and in Zealand.

He learned, too, from a master mason how to carve
wood and stone, when the man came to make, in the
choir of Notre Dame, a stall so constructed that when it
was necessary the aged dean could sit down on it while
still seeming to remain standing.

It was Ulenspiegel who carved the first handle for
the knife used by the Zealand folk. This handle
he made in the shape of a cage. Within there was a
loose death's head; above it a dog in a lying posture.
These emblems taken together signify " Blade faith-
ful to the death."

And in this wise Ulenspiegel began to fulfil the
prediction of Katheline, showing himself painter,
sculptor, clown, noble, all at once and together, for

And Lamme Goedzak 43

from father to son the Claes bore for arms three quart
pots argent on a field of bruinbier.

But Ulenspiegel was constant to no trade, and Claes
told him if this game went on, he would turn him away
from the cottage.

XXII

The Emperor being returned from war, asked why his
son Philip had not come to greet him.

The Infante's archbishop-governor replied that he
had not desired to do so, for, so he said, he cared for
nothing but books and solitude.

The Emperor enquired where he was at that moment.

The governor answered that they must seek him
in every place where it was dark. They did so.

Having gone through a goodly number of chambers,
they came at last to a kind of closet, unpaven, and
lit by a skylight. There they saw stuck in the earth
a post to which was fastened by the waist a pretty
little tiny monkey, that had been sent to His Highness
from the Indies to delight him with its youthful an-
tics. At the foot of this stake faggots still red were
smoking, and in the closet there was a foul stench of
burnt hair.

The little beast had suffered so much dying in this
fire that its little body seemed to be not an animal
that ever had life, but a fragment of some wrinkled
twisted root, and in its mouth, open as though to
cry out on death, bloody foam was visible, and the
water of its tears made its face wet.

"Who did this?" asked the Emperor.

The governor did not dare to reply, and both men
remained silent, sad, and wrathful.

.{4 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Suddenly in this silence there was heard a low
little sound of a cough that came from a corner in
the shadow behind them. His Majesty, turning
about, received the Infante Philip, all clad in black
and sucking a lemon.

"Don Philip," said he, "come and salute me."

The Infante, without budging, looked at him
with his timid eyes in which there was no affec-
tion.

"Is it thou," asked the Emperor, "that hast burned
this little beast in this fire?"

The Infante hung his head.

But the Emperor:

"If thou wert cruel enough to do it, be brave enough
to confess it."

The Infante made no answer.

His Majesty plucked the lemon out of his hands and
flung it on the ground, and he was about to beat his
son melting away with fright, when the archbishop,
stopping him, whispered in his ear:

"His Highness will be a great burner of heretics
one day."

The Emperor smiled, and the two men went away,
leaving the Infante alone with his monkey.

But there were others that were no monkeys and
died in the flames.

XXIII

November had come, the month of hail in which
coughing folk give themselves up wholehearted to
the music of phlegm. In this month also the small
boys descend in bands on the turnip fields, pilfering
what they can from them, to the great rage of the

And Lamme Goedzak 45

peasants, who vainly run after them with sticks and
forks.

Now one evening, as Ulenspiegel was coming back
from a marauding foray, he heard close by, in a corner
of the hedge, a sound of groaning. Stooping down,
he saw a dog lying upon some stones.

"Hey," said he, "miserable beastie, what dost thou
there so late?'*

Caressing the dog, he felt his back wet, thought
that someone had tried to drown him, and took him
up in his arms to warm him.

Coming home he said:

"I bring a wounded patient, what shall I do to
him?"

"Heal him," said Claes in reply.

Ulenspiegel set the dog down upon the table. Claes,
Soetkin, and himself then saw by the light of the
lamp a little red Luxembourg spaniel hurt on the
back. Soetkin sponged the wounds, covered them
with ointment, and bound them up with linen. Ulen-
spiegel took the little beast into his bed, though Soet-
kin wanted to have him in her own, fearing, as she
said, lest Ulenspiegel, who tumbled about in bed
like a devil in a holy water pot, should hurt the dog
as he slept.

But Ulenspiegel had his own way, and tended him
so well that after six days the patient ran about like
his fellows full of doggish tricks.

And the school-me ester christened him Titus Bibulus
Schnouffius : Titus in memory of a certain good Emperor
of Rome, who took pains to gather in lost dogs; Bibulus
because the dog loved bruinbier with the love of
a true tosspot, and Schnouffius because sniff-sniffing

46 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

everywhere he was always thrusting his nose into rat-
holes and mole holes.

XXIV

At the end of the Rue Notre Dame there were two
willows planted face to face on the edge of a deep pond.

Ulenspiegel stretched a rope between the two wil-
lows and danced upon it one Sunday after vespers,
so well that all the crowd of vagabonds applauded
him with both hand and voice. Then he came down
from his rope and held out to all the bystanders a
bowl that was speedily rilled with money, but he
emptied it in Soetkin's apron and kept only eleven
Hards for himself.

The next Sunday he would fain dance again on his
rope, but certain good-for-nought lads, being jealous
of his nimbleness, had made a nick in the rope, so
that after a few bounds the rope broke in sunder and
Ulenspiegel tumbled into the water.

Whilst he swam to reach the bank the little fellows
that cut the rope shouted to him:

"How is your limber health, Ulenspiegel? Are
you going to the bottom of the pond to teach the
carps to dance, dancer beyond price?"

Ulenspiegel coming out from the water and shaking
himself cried out to them, for they were making off
from him for fear of his fists :

"Be not afraid; come back next Sunday, I will show
you tricks on the rope and you will have a share in
the proceeds."

On Sunday, the lads had not sliced the cord, but
were keeping watch round about it, for fear any one
might touch it, for there was a great crowd of people.

And Lamme Goedzak 47

Ulenspiegel said to them:

"Each of you give me one of your shoes, and I
wager that however big or little they may be I will
dance with every one of them."

"What do you pay if you lose?" they asked.

"Forty quarts of bruinbier," replied Ulenspiegel,
"and ye shall pay me three patards if I win the wager."

"Aye," said they.

And they each gave him a shoe. Ulenspiegel put
them all in the apron he was wearing, and thus laden
he danced upon the rope, though not without trouble.

The cord slicers called out from below:

"Thou saidst thou wouldst dance with every one
of our shoes; put them on then and hold thy wager!"

Ulenspiegel, all the while dancing, made reply:

"I never said I would put on your shoes, but that
I would dance with them. Now I am dancing and
everything in my apron is dancing with me. Do
ye not see it with your frog's eyes all staring out of
your heads? Pay me my three patards."

But they hooted at him, shouting that he must
give them their shoes back.

Ulenspiegel threw them at them one after the other
into a heap. Therefrom arose a furious affray, for
none of them could clearly distinguish his own shoe
in the heap, or lay hold of it without a fight.

Ulenspiegel then came down from the tree and
watered the combatants, but not with fair water.

XXV

The Infante, being fifteen years of age, went wander-
ing, as his way was, through corridors, staircases, and

48 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

chambers about the castle. But most of all he was
seen prowling about the ladies' apartments, in order
to brawl with the pages who like himself were like
cats in ambush in the corridors. Others planting
themselves in the court, would be singing some tender
ditty with their noses turned aloft.

The Infante, hearing them, would show himself at a
window, and so terrify the poor pages that beheld this
pallid muzzle instead of the soft eyes of their fair ones.

Among the court ladies there was a charming Flem-
ish woman from Dudzeele hard by Damme, plump,
a handsome ripe fruit and marvellously lovely, for
she had green eyes and red crimped hair, shining
like gold. Of a gay humour and ardent temperament,
she never hid from any one her inclination for the lucky
lord to whom she accorded the divine right of way
of love over her goodly pleasaunce. There was one
at this moment, handsome and high spirited, whom
she loved. Every day at a certain hour she went to
meet him, and this Philip discovered.

Taking his seat upon a bench set close up against
a window, he watched for her and when she was passing
in front of him, her eye alight, her lips parted, amiable,
fresh from the bath, and rustling about her all her
array of yellow brocade, she caught sight of the Infante
who said to her, without getting up from his seat:

"Madame, could you not stay a moment?"

Impatient as a filly held back in her career, at the
moment when she is hurrying to the splendid stallion
neighing in the meadow, she answered:

"Highness, everyone here must obey your princely
will."

"Sit down beside me," said he.

And Lamme Goedzak 49

Then looking at her luxuriously, stonily, and warily,
he said:

" Repeat the Pater to me in Flemish ; they have taught
it to me, but I have forgotten it."

The poor lady then must begin to say a Pater and
he must needs bid her say it slower.

And in this way he forced the poor thing to say
as many as ten Paters, she that thought the hour had
come to go through other orisons.

Then covering her with praises and flatteries, he
spoke of her lovely hair, her bright colour, her shining
eyes, but did not venture to say a word to her either
of her plump shoulders or her smooth round breast
or any other thing.

When she thought she could get away and was
already looking out into the court where her lord was
waiting for her, he asked her if she knew truly what
are the womanly virtues.

As she made no answer for fear of saying the wrong
thing, he spoke for her and preaching at her, he said:

"The womanly virtues, these be chastity, watch-
fulness over honour, and sober living."

He counselled her also to array herself decently and
to hide closely all that pertained to her.

She made sign of assent with her head saying:

That for His Hyperborean Highness she would
much sooner cover herself with ten bearskins than with
an ell of muslin.

Having put him in ill humour with this retort, she
fled away rejoicing.

However, the fire of youth was lit up in the Infante's
bosom, but it was not that hot burning flame that
incites strong souls to high deeds, but a dark, sinister

VOL.1. E

50 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

flame come out of hell where Satan had without doubt
kindled it. And it shone in his gray eyes like the
wintry moon upon a charnel-house, and it burned
him cruelly.

XXVI

The beautiful and sweet lady on a day left Valla-
dolid to go to her Chateau of Dudzeele in Flanders.

Passing through Damme attended by her fat sen-
eschal, she saw sitting against the wall of a cottage
a boy of fifteen blowing into a bagpipe. In front of
him was a red dog that, not liking this music, howled
in a melancholy fashion. The sun shone bright.
Standing beside the lad there was a pretty girl laugh-
ing loudly at each fresh pitiful burst of howling from
the dog.

The beautiful dame and the fat seneschal, as they
passed by the cottage, looked at Ulenspiegel blowing,
Nele laughing, and Titus Bibulus Schnouffius howling.

"Bad boy," said the dame, addressing Ulenspiegel,
"could you not cease from making that poor red
beast howl in that way?"

But Ulenspiegel, with his eyes on her, blew up his
bagpipe more stoutly still. And Bibulus Schnouffius
howled still more melancholily, and Nele laughed the
more.

The seneschal, growing angry, said to the dame,
pointing to Ulenspiegel:

"If I were to give this beggar's spawn a dressing
with my scabbard, he would stop making this im-
pudent hubbub."

Ulenspiegel looked at the seneschal, called him
Jan Papzaky because of his belly, and continued to

And Lamme Goedzak 51

blow his bagpipe. The seneschal went up to him with
a threatening fist, but Bibulus Schnouffius threw
himself on the man and bit him in the leg, and the
seneschal tumbled down in affright crying out:

"Help!"

The dame said to Ulenspiegel, smiling:

"Could you not tell me, bagpiper, if the road that
runs from Damme to Dudzeele has not been changed?"

Ulenspiegel, without stopping his playing, nodded
his head and looked still at the dame.

"Why do you look so steadily at me?" she asked.

But he, still playing, stretched his eyes wide as
though rapt in an ecstasy of admiration.

She said to him:

"Are you not ashamed, young as you are, to stare at
ladies so?"

Ulenspiegel reddened slightly, went on blowing,
and stared harder.

"I asked you," she went on, "if the road that runs
from Damme to Dudzeele has not altered?"

"It is not green now since you deprived it of the
joy of carrying you," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Wilt thou guide me?" said the dame.

But Ulenspiegel remained seated, still never taking
his eyes from her. And she, seeing him so roguish, and
knowing that it was a mere trick of youth, forgave him
easily. He got up, and turned to go into his home.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To put on my best clothes," he replied.

"Go then," said the dame.

She sat down then on the bench beside the doorstep;
the seneschal did the same. She would have talked to
Nele, but Nele did not answer her, for she was jealous.

52 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Ulenspiegel came back carefully washed and clad
in fustian. He looked well in his Sunday garb, the
little man.

"Art thou verily going with this beautiful lady?"
Nele asked him.

"I shall be back soon," replied Ulenspiegel.

"If I were to go instead of you?" said Nele.

"Nay," he said, "the roads are full of mire."

"Why," said the dame, angry and jealous together,
"why, little girl, do you want to keep him from coming
with me?"

Nele made her no answer, but big tears welled up
from her eyes and she gazed on the dame in sadness
and in anger.

They started on their way, four all told, the dame
sitting like a queen on her white hackney caparisoned
with black velvet; the seneschal whose belly shook to
his walking; Ulenspiegel holding the dame's hackney
by the bridle, and Bibulus Schnouffius walking along-
side him, tail in air proudly.

They rode and strode thus for some time, but Ulen-
spiegel was not at his ease; dumb as a fish he breathed
in the fine odour of benjamin wafted from the dame,
and looked out of the corners of his eyes at all her
fine tags and rare jewels and furbelows, and also at her
soft mien, her bright eyes, her bared bosom, and her
hair that the sun made to shine like a golden cap.

"Why," said she, "why do you say so little, my
little man?"

He made no reply.

"Your tongue is not so deep down in your shoes
that you could not manage a message for me?"

"Right," said Ulenspiegel.

And Lamme Goedzak 53

"You must," said the dame, "leave me here and
go to Koolkercke, on the other way of the wind, and
tell a gentleman clad particoloured in black and red,
that he must not look for me to-day, but to come on
Sunday at ten at night, into my castle by the postern."

"I will not go," said Ulenspiegel.

"Why not?" asked the dame.

"I will not go, no!" said Ulenspiegel again.

The dame said to him:

"What is it then, little ruffled cock, that inspires
thee with this fierce mind?"

"I will not go!" said Ulenspiegel.

"But if I gave thee a florin?"

"No!" said he.

"A ducat?"

"No!"

"Acarolus?"

"No," said Ulenspiegel again. "And yet," he
added, sighing, "I should like it in my mother's purse
better than a mussel-shell."

The dame smiled, then cried out suddenly:

"I have lost my fine rare purse, made of silken
cloth and broidered with rich pearls! At Damme
it was still hanging at my girdle."

Ulenspiegel budged not, but the seneschal came
forward to the dame.

"Madame," he said, "send not this young thief
to look for it, for you would never see it again."

"And who will go then?" asked the dame.

"Myself," he answered, "despite my great age."

And he went off.

Noon struck, the heat was great, the solitude pro-
found; Ulenspiegel said no word, but he doffed his

54 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

new doublet that the dame might sit down in the
shade beneath a lime, without fearing the cool of the
grass. He remained standing close by her, sighing.

She looked at him and felt pity rising up in her for this
timid little fellow, and asked him if he was not weary
with standing so on his tender young legs. He answered
not a word, and as he let himself drop down beside her,
she tried to catch him, and pulled him on to her bared
bosom, where he remained with such good will that she
would have thought herself guilty of the sin of cruelty
if she had bidden him seek another pillow.

However, the seneschal came back and said he had
not found the purse.

"I found it myself," replied the dame, "when I
dismounted from my horse, for it had unfastened its
broochpin and got caught up on the stirrup. Now,"
she said to Ulenspiegel, "take us the direct way to
Dudzeele and tell me how thou art called."

"My patron," he answered, "is Master Saint
Thylbert, a name which signifies light of foot to run
after good matters; my name is Claes and my to-
name Ulenspiegel. If you would look at yourself
in my mirror, you will see that there is not upon all
this land of Flanders a flower of beauty so dazzling
as your fragrant loveliness."

The dame blushed with pleasure and was in no wise
wroth with Ulenspiegel.

And Soetkin and Nele wept during this long absence.

XXVII

When Ulenspiegel came back from Dudzeele, he
saw Nele at the entrance to the town, leaning up

And Lamme Goedzak 55

against a barrier. She was eating a bunch of grapes,
crunching them one by one, and was doubtless re-
freshed and rejoiced by the fruit, but allowed none of
her pleasure to be seen. She appeared, on the con-
trary, to be angry, and plucked the grapes from off
the bunch with a choleric air. She was so dolorous
and showed a face so marred, so sad and so sweet, that
Ulenspiegel was overcome with loving pity, and going
up behind her, gave her a kiss on the nape of her
neck.

But she returned it with a great box on the ear.

"I can't fathom that!" exclaimed Ulenspiegel.

She wept with heavy sobs.

"Nele," said he, "are you going to set up fountains
at the entrance to the villages?"

"Begone!" she said.

"But I cannot be gone, if you weep like this, my
dear."

"I am not your dear," said Nele, "and I do not

weep

"No, you do not weep, but none the less water comes
from your eyes."

"Will you go away?" said she.

"No," said he.

She was holding her apron the while with her little
trembling hands, and she was pulling the stuff jerkily
and tears fell on it, wetting it.

"Nele," asked Ulenspiegel, "will it be fine pres-
ently?" And he looked on her, smiling lovingly.

"Why do you ask me that?" said she.

"Because, when it is fine, it does not weep," replied
Ulenspiegel.

"Go," said she, "go to your beautiful lady in the

56 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

brocade dress; you made her laugh well enough,"
said she.
Then sang Ulenspiegel:

"When my darling's tears I see

My heart is torn atwain,

'Tis honey when she laughs for me,

When she weeps, a pearl.

Always I love my dearest girl,

And I'll buy good wine for us,

Good wine of Louvain,

I'll buy good wine for us to drink,

When Nele smiles again."

"Low man!" said she, "you are still flouting
me."

"Nele," said Ulenspiegel, "a man I am, but not
low, for our noble family, an aldermanish family, bears
three silver quarts on a ground of bruinbier. Nele,
is it so that in Flanders when a man sows kisses he
reaps boxes on the ear?"

"I do not wish to speak to you," said she.

"Then why do you open your mouth to tell me so?"

"I am angry," said she.

Ulenspiegel very lightly gave her a blow with his
fist in the back, and said:

"Kiss a mean thing, she'll punch you; punch a
mean thing and she'll anoint you. Anoint me then,
darling, since I have punched you."

Nele turned about. He opened his arms, she cast
herself in them still weeping, and said:

"You won't go there again, Thyl, will you?"

But he made her no answer, for he was too busy
clasping her poor trembling fingers and wiping away

And Lamme Goedzak 57

with his lips the hot tears falling from Nele's eyes
like the big drops of a thunder shower.

XXVIII

In these days, the noble town of Ghent refused to
pay her quota of the subsidy her son Charles the
Emperor had asked of her. She could not, being
void of money through the very doings of Charles.
This was a great crime; he determined to go in his
own person to chastise her.

For more than any other is a son's cudgel grievous
to the back of a mother.

Francois of the long nose, his foe, offered him free
passage through the land of France. Charles accepted,
and instead of being held a prisoner he was feasted and
cherished imperially. 'Tis a sovereign concord between
princes to help one another against the peoples.

Charles stayed long at Valenciennes without making
any show of anger. Ghent, his mother, lived free
from fear, in the certain belief that the Emperor,
her son, would pardon her for having acted as was her
lawful right.

Charles arrived beneath the city walls with four
thousand horse. D'Alba was with him, so was the
Prince of Orange. The common folk and the men
of petty trades had wanted to prevent this filial en-
try, and to call out the eighty thousand men of the
town and the flat country; the men of substance,
the so-called hoogh-poorterSy opposed this, fearing the
predominance of the lower orders. Ghent could in
this way have made mincemeat of her son and his
four thousand horse. But she loved him too well,

58 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

and even the petty traders had resumed their trust
in him.

Charles also loved his mother, but for the money
he held in his coffers from her, and the further moneys
he meant to have from her.

Having made himself master of the town, he set
up military posts everywhere, and had Ghent pa-
trolled by rounds night and day. Then he pronounced,
with all pomp and ceremony, his sentence upon the
town.

The most eminent citizens must come before his
throne, with ropes about their necks, and make full
public confession of their misdeeds: Ghent was de-
clared guilty of the most expensive crimes, which
are: disloyalty, treaty-breaking, disobedience, sedition,
rebellion, and treason. The Emperor declared all
and sundry privileges, rights, franchises, customs, and
usages void and abolished; stipulating and engaging
the future, as though he were God, that thence-
forward his successors on their entering into their
seigniory would swear to observe nothing save only
the Caroline Concession of slavery granted by him to
the town.

He had the Abbey of Saint Bavon pulled down
in order to rear on its site a fortress from which
he could pierce his mother's bosom with cannon
shot.

Like a good son eager to come into his inheritance,
he confiscated all that belonged to Ghent, revenues,
houses, artillery, munitions of war.

Finding her over well defended, he knocked down
the Red Tower, the Toad's Hole Tower, the Braam-
poort, the Steenpoort, the Waalpoort, the Ketelpoort,

And Lamme Goedzak 59

and many others wrought and carven like jewels in
stone.

When strangers thereafter came to Ghent, they
said to one another:

"What is this flat, desolate town whose wonders
and praises were sung so loudly?"

And the folk of Ghent would make answer:

"The Emperor Charles hath taken her precious
girdle from the good town."

And so saying they were shamed and wroth. And
from the ruins of the gates the Emperor had the bricks
for his fortress.

He would have Ghent poor, for thus neither by toil
nor industry nor gold could she oppose his haughty
plans; therefore he condemned her to pay the refused
quota of the subsidy, four hundred thousand gold
carolus, and besides this, one hundred and fifty thou-
sand carolus down and six thousand every year in per-
petuity. She had lent him money: he was to pay one
hundred and fifty pounds interest yearly. He took
possession by force of the deeds recording his debt
and paying it in this way, he actually enriched him-
self.

Many a time had Ghent given him love and suc-
cour, but he now smote her bosom with a dagger,
seeking blood from it because he found not enough
milk there.

Then he looked upon Roelandt, the great bell,
and hanged from the clapper the fellow who had
sounded the alarm to call the city to defend her right.
He had no mercy for Roelandt, his mother's tongue,
the tongue with which she spoke to Flanders: Roe-
landt, the proud bell, which saith of himself:

60 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Als men my slaet dan is't brandt.

Als men my luyt dan is't storm in Vlaenderlandt.

When they ring me there is fire.

When they toll me there is storm in Flanders.

Finding that his mother spoke too loud and free,
he took away the bell. And the folk of the flat country
say that Ghent died because her son had torn out her
tongue with his iron pincers.

XXIX

One of these days, which were bright fresh days of the
springtime, when all the earth is full of love, Soetkin
was talking by the open window, Claes humming some
refrain, while Ulenspiegel had put a judge's cap on the
head of Titus Bibulus Schnouffius. The dog was work-
ing with his paws as though endeavouring to utter a
judgment, but it was merely to get rid of his headgear.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel shut the window, ran into
the middle of the room, jumped on chairs and tables,
his hands stretched up to the ceiling. Soetkin and
Claes saw that all this energy was to catch a pretty little
bird that was crying out with fear, its wings fluttering,
cowering against a beam in a corner of the ceiling.

Ulenspiegel was on the point of seizing it, when
Claes said quickly:

"What are you jumping for like that?"

"To catch it," answered Ulenspiegel, "and put it
in a cage, and give it seed and make it sing for me."

Meanwhile the bird, crying shrilly with terror, was
flying about the room and dashing its head against
the windowpanes.

And Lamme Goedzak 61

Ulenspiegel did not cease jumping after it: Claes
laid his hand weightily on the lad's shoulder:

"Catch it," he said, "put it in a cage, make it
sing for you, do, but I, too, will put you in a cage, shut
in with stout iron bars, and I will make you sing as
well. You like to run, you will not be able to run;
you will be in the shade when you are cold, in the
sun when you are hot. Then one Sunday we shall
go out, forgetting to give you any food, and we shall only
come back on the Thursday, and returning we shall
find Thyl dead of hunger and stark and stiff."

Soetkin wept, Ulenspiegel sprang forward.

"What are you going to do?" asked Claes.

"I am opening the window for the bird," he answered.

And indeed, the bird, which was a goldfinch, went
out of the window, uttered a cry of joy, shot up
like an arrow in the air, then setting itself in an
apple tree close by, it sleeked its wings with its
beak, shook out its plumage, and becoming angry,
hurled a thousand insults at Ulenspiegel in its bird
speech.

Then Claes said to him:

"Son, never take liberty from man nor beast for liberty
is the greatest boon in this world. Leave everyman to go
in the sun when he is cold, in the shade when he is hot.
And may God judge His Sacred Majesty who, having
fettered freedom of belief in the land of Flanders, has
now put Ghent, the noble town, in a cage of slavery."

XXX

Philip had married Marie of Portugal, whose posses-
sions he added to the Spanish crown; he had by her a

62 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

son, Don Carlos, the cruel madman. But he did not
love his wife!

The Queen was ill after the birth. She kept her bed
and had with her her ladies in waiting, among whom
was the Duchess of Alba.

Philip often left her alone to go and see the burning
of heretics, and all the lords and ladies of the court
the same. Likewise also the Duchess of Alba, the
Queen's noble nurse.

At this time the Official seized a Flemish sculptor,
a Roman Catholic, because when a monk had re-
fused to pay the price agreed for a wooden statue
of Our Lady, he had struck the face of the statue
with his chisel, saying he would rather destroy his
work than sell it for a mean price.

He was denounced by the monk as an iconoclast,
tortured mercilessly, and condemned to be burned alive.

In the torture they had burned the soles of his feet,
and as he walked from prison to the stake, wearing
the san-benitOy he kept crying out, "Cut off my feet,
cut off my feet!"

And Philip heard these cries from afar off, and he
was pleased, but he did not laugh.

Queen Marie's ladies left her to go to the burning,
and after them went the Duchess of Alba, who, hearing
the Flemish sculptor's cries, wished to see the spec-
tacle, and left the Queen alone.

Philip, his noble servitors, princes, counts, esquires,
and ladies being present, the sculptor was fastened
by a long chain to a stake planted in the middle of
a burning circle made of trusses of straw and of faggots
that would roast him to death slowly, if he wished to
avoid the quick fire by hugging the stake.

And Lamme Goedzak 63

And all looked curiously on him as he sought, naked
or all but naked as he was, to stiffen his will and cour-
age against the heat of the fire.

At the same time Queen Marie was athirst on her
bed of childbirth. She saw half a melon on a dish.
Dragging herself out of bed, she seized this melon
and left nothing of it.

Then by reason of the cold flesh of the melon, she
fell into sweating and trembling, lay on the floor, and
could not move hand or foot.

"Ah," she said, "I might grow warm if someone
could carry me to my bed."

She heard then the poor sculptor crying:

"Cut off my feet!"

"Ah!" said Queen Marie, "is that a dog howling
for my death?"

At this moment the sculptor, seeing about him
none but the faces of enemies and Spaniards, thought
upon Flanders, the land of men, folded his arms, and
dragging his long chain behind him he went straight
to the straw and burning faggots and standing up-
right upon them with arms still folded:

"Lo," said he, "how the Flemish can die before
Spanish butchers. Cut off their feet, not mine, but
theirs, that they may run no more after murder!
Long live Flanders! Flanders for ever and evermore!"

And the ladies applauded, crying for mercy as they
saw his proud face.

And he died.

Queen Marie shivered from head to foot, she wept,
her teeth chattered with the cold of approaching
death, and she said, stiffening her arms and legs:

64 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Put me in my bed, that I may be warmed."
And she died.

Thus, even according to the prediction of Katheline,
the good witch, did Philip everywhere sow death,
blood, and tears.

XXXI

But Ulenspiegel and Nele loved with surpassing
love.

It was then in the end of April, with all the trees
in flower; all the plants, bursting with sap, were await-
ing May, which cometh on the earth with a peacock
for companion, blossoming like a nosegay, and maketh
the nightingales to sing among the trees.

Often Ulenspiegel and Nele would wander down
the roads alone together. Nele hung upon Ulen-
spiegel's arm, and held to it with both hands. Ulen-
spiegel, taking pleasure in this play, often passed his
arm about Nele's waist, to hold her the better, he
would tell her. And she was happy, though she did
not speak a word.

The wind rolled softly along the roads the perfumed
breath of the meadows; far away the sea murmured
to the sun, idle and at ease; Ulenspiegel was like
a young devil, full of spunk and fire, and Nele like a
little saint from Paradise, all shamefast at her de-
light.

She leaned her head on Ulenspiegel's shoulder,
he took her hands, and as they went, he kissed her
forehead, her cheeks, her darling mouth. But she
did not speak.

After some hours, they were hot and thirsty, then

And Lamme Goedzak 65

they drank milk at a peasant's cottage, but they
were not refreshed.

And they sat down on the green turf beside a ditch.
Nele was pale and white, and pensive; Ulenspiegel
looked at her, alarmed.

"You are sad?" she said.

"Ay," said he.

"Why?" she asked.

"I know not," he said, "but these appletrees and
cherries all in blossom, this warm soft air, as it were,
charged with thunder fire, these daisies opening and
blushing upon the fields, the hawthorn there beside
us in the hedgerows, all white. . . . Who shall
tell me why I feel troubled and always ready to die
or to sleep? And my heart beats so hard when I
hear the birds awaking in the trees and see the swallows
come back, then I long to go beyond the sun and the
moon. And now I am cold, and now hot. Ah!
Nele! I would fain no more be in this low world, or
give a thousand lives to the one who would love
me.

But she did not speak, and smiling happily, looked
at Ulenspiegel.

XXXII

On the day of the Feast of the Dead, Ulenspiegel
came away from Notre Dame with some vagabonds
of his own age. Lamme Goedzak was lost among
them, like a sheep in the midst of wolves.

Lamme freely paid for drink for everyone, for his
mother gave him three patards every Sunday and
feast day.

He went then with his comrades In den rooden

VOL.1. F

66 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

schildt, to the Red Shield, whose landlord Jan Van
Liebeke served them with the dobbele knollaert of
Courtrai.

The drink heated their wits, and talking of prayers
Ulenspiegel declared plumply that masses for the
dead are good only for the priests.

But there was a Judas in the band: he denounced
Ulenspiegel as a heretic. In spite of Soetkin's tears
and Claes's entreaties, Ulenspiegel was taken and cast
into prison. There he remained in a cellar behind bars
for a month and three days without seeing any one.
The gaoler ate three quarters of his pittance. In the
meanwhile, inquiries were made into his good and bad
reputation. It was found merely that he was a sharp
jester, flouting his neighbours continually, but never
having missaid Monseigneur God, or Madame Virgin
or messieurs the saints. And so the sentence was a
light one, for he might have been branded in the face
with a red-hot iron, and whipped till the blood came.

In consideration of his youth, the judges condemned
him merely to walk in his shirt behind the priests,
bareheaded and barefooted, and a candle in his hand,
in the first procession that should go out from the
church.

That was on Ascension Day.

When the procession was returning, he must stand
still under the porch of Notre Dame and there cry aloud :

"Thanks to my Lord Jesu! Thanks to messieurs
the priests! Their prayers are sweet to souls in pur-
gatory, yea, refreshing; for every Ave is a bucket of
water falling on their back, every Pater a cistern."

And the people hearkened most devoutly, not with-
out laughing.

And Lamme Goedzak 67

At the Feast of Pentecost, he must again follow the
procession; he was in his shirt, barefoot and bareheaded,
candle in hand. Coming back, standing beneath the
porch, and holding his candle very reverently, not
without pulling a waggish face or two, he called in a
loud clear voice:

"If the prayers of Christian men are a great ease
and solace to souls in purgatory, those of the dean of
Notre Dame, that holy man perfect in the practice
of all the virtues, assuage so well the torments of
the fire that it is transformed to ices all at once. But
the devil-tormentors have not so much as one crumb."

And the people once more hearkened devoutly, not
without laughter, and the dean, well pleased, smiled
ecclesiastically.

Then Ulenspiegel was banished from the land of
Flanders for three years, under condition of making
pilgrimage to Rome and returning thence with abso-
lution from the Pope.

Claes must pay three florins for this sentence;
but he gave still another to his son and furnished him
with the habiliments of a pilgrim.

Ulenspiegel was brokenhearted on the day of de-
parting, when he embraced Claes and Soetkin, who
was all in tears, the unhappy mother. They convoyed
him a long long way on his road, in company of several
townsfolk, both men and women.

Claes, when they came back to their cottage, said
to his wife:

"Goodwife, it is exceeding harsh, for a few mad
words, to condemn so young a lad to so heavy a penalty
in this fashion."

"Thou art weeping, my husband," said Soetkin.

68 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Thou dost love him more than thou showest, for thou
art breaking into man's sobs, which be lion's tears."

But he made no answer.

Nele had gone to hide in the barn that none might
see that she also wept for Ulenspiegel. A long way
off she followed Soetkin and Claes and the townsfolk;
when she saw her friend disappearing alone, she ran
to him and leaping on his neck:

"You will be finding many beautiful dames over
there," said she.

"Beautiful," replied Ulenspiegel, "I cannot tell;
but fresh as you, no, for the sun has roasted them all."

Long they went their way together: Ulenspiegel
was pensive and now and then would say:

"I'll make them pay their masses for the dead."

"What masses, and who will pay?" asked Nele.

Ulenspiegel replied:

"All the deans, curates, clerks, beadles, and other
bigwigs high or low that feed us on windy trash. If
I were a stout workman, they would have robbed
me of the fruit of three years' toil by making me go
pilgrimaging. But it is poor Claes who pays. They
shall repay me my three years an hundredfold, and I
will chant them as well the mass for their dead money."

"Alas, Thyl, be prudent: they will burn you alive,"
replied Nele.

"I am pure asbestos," answered Ulenspiegel.

And they parted, she all in tears, he brokenhearted,
and in anger.

XXXIII

Passing through Bruges on the Wednesday market,
there he saw a woman led along by the executioner

And Lamme Goedzak 69

and his knaves, and a great crowd of other women
around her crying and howling a thousand vile in-
sults.

Ulenspiegel, seeing the upper part of her dress equip-
ped with pieces of red cloth, and seeing the stone of
justice with its iron chains, at her neck, perceived
that this was a woman who had sold for gain the
fresh young bodies of her daughters. They told him
her name was Barbe, she was the wife of Jason Darue,
and would be brought in this costume from place to
place until she came back to the great marketplace,
where she would be set up on a scaffold already erected
for her. Ulenspiegel followed her with the crowd of
shouting people. Once back in the great market-
place she was set on the scaffold, bound to a stake,
and the executioner laid before her a bundle of grass
and a clod, signifying the pit of the grave.

They told Ulenspiegel, too, that she had been
whipped already in prison.

As he was going away, he met Henri le Marischal,
a swashbuckling rogue who had been hanged in the
castle-ward of West Ypres and still showed the track
of the cord around his neck. "He had been de-
livered," he said, "while already hoisted into the air,
by saying one only good prayer to Notre Dame of
Hal, in such wise that, by a true miracle, the bailiffs
and the judges having gone, the cords, already loosened,
broke, he fell to earth, and was in this manner saved
and sound."

But later Ulenspiegel learned that this rascal de-
livered from the rope was a counterfeit Henri Mar-
ischal, and that he was left to run about retailing
his lie because he was bearer of a parchment signed

70 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

by the dean of Notre Dame de Hal, who by reason
of the tale of this Henri le Marischal saw flocking
to his church and lavishly feeing him all those who
smelled the gallows from near by or far off. And for a
long time Our Lady of Hal was surnamed Our Lady of
the Hanged.

XXXIV

At this time the inquisitors and theologians for
the second time made representation to the Emperor
Charles:

That the Church was going to ruin; that its authority
was contemned; that if he had won so many glorious
victories, he owed it to the prayers of Catholicism,
which upheld the imperial power on its high throne.

A Spanish Archbishop asked him to have six
thousand heads cut off or the same number of bodies
burned, in order to root the malignant Lutheran
heresy out of the Low Countries. His Sacred Maj-
esty deemed this insufficient.

And so, everywhere the terrified Ulenspiegel went
he saw nothing but heads on stakes, girls thrust into
sacks and cast alive into the river; men stretched
naked on the wheel and beaten with great blows of
iron bars, women laid in shallow graves, with earth
over them, and the executioner dancing on their
breast to break it in. But the confessors of all, men
and women, that had first repented, were richer by
twelve sols a time.

He saw at Louvain the executioners burn thirty
Lutherans at once, and light the pile with gunpowder.
At Limburg he saw a family, men and women, daugh-
ters and sons-in-law, walk to the scaffold singing

And Lamme Goedzak 71

psalms. The man, who was old, cried out while he
was a-burning.

And Ulenspiegel, full of fear and grief, journeyed on
over the poor earth.

XXXV

In the fields, he shook himself like a bird or like
a dog loosed from the lead, and his heart took comfort
before the trees, the meadows, the clear sun.

Having walked for three days, he came to the
neighbourhood of Brussels, in the powerful commune of
Uccle. Passing before the hostelry of the Trumpet,
he was enticed by a celestial fragrance of fricassees.
He asked a little tramp who, nose in air, was regaling
himself with the odour of the sauces, in whose honour
this festival incense arose to heaven. The other
replied that the Brothers of the Good Red Nose were
to assemble after vespers to celebrate the deliver-
ance of the commune by the women and girls in olden
time.

Ulenspiegel, spying from far off a pole surmounted
by a popinjay, and all around goodwives armed with
bows, asked if women were becoming archers nowa-
days.

The tramp, sniffing up the odour of the sauces, re-
plied that in the days of the Good Duke those same
bows, in the hands of the women of Uccle, had laid
low more than a hundred brigands.

Ulenspiegel, desiring to know more of this, the
tramp told him that he would not say another word
so hungry and so thirsty was he, unless he gave him
a patard for food and drink. Ulenspiegel gave it him
out of pity.

72 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

As soon as the tramp had his patard, he went into
the Trumpet Inn, like a fox into a henroost, and came
out in triumph with half a sausage and a great hunch
of bread.

All at once Ulenspiegel heard a soft noise of tam-
bourines and viols, and beheld a great troop of women
dancing, and among them a comely matron with a
gold chain about her neck.

The tramp, who laughed for joy at having had some-
thing to eat, told Ulenspiegel that this handsome
young woman was the Queen of the Archery, was
called Mietje, the wife of Messire Renonckel, the
sheriff of the commune. Then he asked Ulenspiegel
for six liards for drink: Ulenspiegel gave them to
him. Thus having eaten and drunken, the tramp sat
down in the sun and picked his teeth and trimmed his
nails.

When the women archers caught sight of Ulen-
spiegel in his pilgrim's array, they set to work dancing
about him in a ring, saying:

"Good morrow, handsome pilgrim; do you come from
far away, youngling pilgrim?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"I come from Flanders, a fine country rich in loving
girls."

And he thought sadly of Nele.

"What was your crime?" they asked him, desisting
from their dancing.

"I would not dare to confess it," said he, "so great
a one it was. But I have other things that are not
small."

They smiled at that and asked why he must travel
in this wise with staff and scrip and oyster shell.

And Lamme Goedzak 73

"Because," said he, lying a little, "I said that masses
for the dead are of advantage to the priests."

"They bring them in good coin," replied they, "but
they are of advantage to souls in purgatory."

"I wasn't there," rejoined Ulenspiegel.

"Will you eat with us, pilgrim?" said the prettiest
of the archers.

"I will gladly eat with you," said he, "and eat you,
and all the others turn about, for you are titbits for
a king, more delicious than ortolans or thrushes or
woodcocks."

"God give you food," said they, "this is game
beyond price."

"Like all of you, dear ones," he answered.

"Aye, verily," said they, "but we are not for sale."

"And'for the giving?" he asked.

"Ay," said they, "of blows to the overbold. And
if you need it, we will thrash you like a sheaf of
corn."

"I abstain therefrom," said he.

"Come eat," said they.

He followed them into the court of the inn, happy
to see these fresh faces about him. Suddenly he beheld
entering the court with high ceremony, with banner
and trumpet and flute and tambourine, the Brothers
of the Good Red Nose, wearing in fatness the jolly
name of their fellowship. As they looked curiously
upon him, the women told them it was a pilgrim they
had picked up by the way and that finding him a
true Red Nose, and matching their husbands and
betrotheds, they had been minded to make him share
their feast.

The men approved their tale, and one said:

74 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Pilgrim on pilgrimage, wouldst thou pilgrimage
through sauces and fricassees?"

"I shall have seven-leagued boots for that," said
Ulenspiegel.

As he was on the point of entering the hall of the
feasting with them, he descried on the road to Paris
twelve blind men trudging along. When they passed
before him, complaining of hunger and of thirst,
Ulenspiegel said to himself that they would sup that
night like kings, at the charge of the dean of Uccle,
in memory of the masses for the dead. He went to
them and said:

"Here be nine florins, come and eat. Do ye smell
the good fragrance of the fricassees?"

"Alas!" said they, "for the last half of a league,
and no hope."

"You shall eat," said Ulenspiegel, "now you have
nine florins." But he did not give them.

"A blessing on thee," said they.

And guided by Ulenspiegel, they sat down around
a small table, while the Brothers of the Good Red
Nose sate at a great one with their goodwives and
sweethearts.

Speaking with full assurance of nine florins:

"Host," said the blind men, proudly, "give us to
eat and drink of your best."

The host, who had heard a mention of the nine
florins, believed them to be in their pouches, and
asked what they wished to have.

Then all of them, speaking at once, cried out:

" Peas with bacon, a hotchpotch of beef, veal, mutton,
and fowl."- -"Are sausages meant for dogs?" — "Who
ever smelled the passing of black puddings and white,

And Lamme Goedzak 75

without seizing them by the collar? I used to see
them, alas! when my poor eyes were candles to me." —
"Where are the koekebakken au beurre of Anderlecht?
They sing in the pan, succulent and crisp, mother of
quart draughts." — "Who will bring under my nose
ham and eggs or eggs and ham, those tender brothers
and close friends in the mouth?" — "Where are ye,
divine choesels, swimming, proud viands that you
are, in the midst of kidneys, of cockscombs, of riz
de veau, of oxtails, sheep's trotters, and abundant
onions, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, all in the stew and
three quarts of white wine for sauce?" — "Who will
bring you to rne, divine atidouilles, so good that ye
say no word when ye are swallowed? Ye came ever
straight from Luy-leckerland, the rich country of the
happy do-naughts, the lickers up of never-ending
sauces. But where are ye, withered leaves of bygone
autumns!" — "I want a leg of mutton with beans." —
"I want pigs' plumes, their ears." — "For me a rosary
of ortolans, with woodcocks for the Paters on it and
a fat capon for the Credo."

The host answered sedately:

"You shall have an omelette of sixty eggs, and for
guiding posts for you spoons, fifty black puddings,
planted smoking hot on this mountain of nourishment,
and dobbel peterman to wash all down with: that
will be the river."

The water came into the mouths of the poor blind
men and they said:

"Serve us themountain, the guideposts, and the river."

And the Brothers of the Good Red Nose and their
goodwives already at table with Ulenspiegel said that
this day was for the blind the day of invisible junketing,

76 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

and that the poor men thus lost the half of their pleas-
ure.

When the omelette arrived, all decked with parsley
and nasturtium, and borne by the host and four cooks,
the blind men would fain have thrown themselves upon
it and already were haggling in it, but the host served
them separately, not without difficulty, to each his
share in his own dish.

The archer women were touched to see them eating
and heaving sighs of content, for they were mightily
hungered and swallowed down the black puddings
like oysters. The dobbel peterman flowed down into
their bellies like cascades falling from mountain tops.

When they had cleaned their dishes, they asked
again for koekebakken, for ortolans and fresh fricassees.
The host only served them a great dish of bones of
beef and veal and mutton swimming in a good sauce.
He did not give each his portion.

When they had dipped their bread and their hands
up to the elbows in the sauce, and only brought up
bones of every kind, even some ox jaw bones, every-
one thought his neighbour had all the meat, and
they beat each other's faces furiously with the
bones.

The Brothers of the Good Red Nose, having
laughed their fill, charitably conveyed part of their
own feast into the poor fellows' dish, and he who
groped in the plate for a bone for a weapon would
set his hand on a thrush, a chicken, a lark or two,
while the goodwives, pulling their heads back, would
pour Brussels wine down their throats in a flood, and
when they groped about blindly to feel whence these
streams of ambrosia were coming to them, they caught

And Lamme Goedzak 77

nothing but a petticoat, and would fain have held it,
but it would whisk away from them suddenly.

And so they laughed, drank, ate, and sang. Some
scenting out the pretty goodwives, ran all about
the hall beside themselves, bewitched by love, but
teasing girls would mislead them, and hiding behind
a Good Red Nose would say "kiss me." And they
would, but instead of a woman, they kissed the bearded
face of a man, and not without rebuffs.

The Good Red Noses sang, the blind men, too.
And the jolly goodwives smiled kindly seeing their
glee.

When these rich and sappy hours were over, the
baes said to them:

"You have eaten well and drunk well, I want seven
florins."

Each one swore he had no purse, and accused his
neighbour. Hence arose yet another fray in which
they sought to strike one another with foot and fist
and head, but they could not, and struck out wildly,
for the Good Red Noses, seeing the play, kept man
away from man. And blows hailed upon the empty
air, save one that by ill chance fell upon the face of
the baes, who, in a rage, searched them all and found
on them nothing but an old scapular, seven Hards,
three breeches buttons, and their paternosters.

He wanted to fling them into the swinehouse and
leave them there on bread and water until someone
should pay what they owed for them.

"Do you," said Ulenspiegel, "want me to go surety
for them?"

"Ay," replied the baes, "if someone will be surety
for you."

78 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

The Good Red Noses were about to do it, but
Ulenspiegel stopped them, saying:

"The dean will be surety, I am going to find him."

Thinking of the masses for the dead, he went to
the deanery and told him how that the baes of the
Trumpet, being possessed of the devil, spoke of nothing
but pigs and blind men, the pigs devouring the blind
and the blind eating the pigs under divers unholy
guises of roasts and fricassees. During these fits, said
he, the baes broke everything in the house, and he
begged the dean to come and deliver the poor man
from this wicked fiend.

The dean promised, but said he could not go im-
mediately, for at that moment he was casting up the
accounts of the chapter, and endeavouring to derive
some profit out of them.

Seeing him impatient, Ulenspiegel said he would
come back with the wife of the baes and that the dean
could speak to her himself.

"Come both of you," said the dean.

Ulenspiegel came back to the baes, and said to him:

"I have just seen the dean, he will stand surety
for the blind men. While you keep guard over them,
let the hostess come with me to the dean, he will
repeat to her what I have just told you."

"Go, goodwife," said the baes.

She went off with Ulenspiegel to the dean, who was
still figuring to find his profit. When she came in
with Ulenspiegel, he impatiently waved her away,
saying:

"Be easy, I shall come to your husband's help in
a day or two."

And Ulenspiegel, returning to the Trumpet, said

And Lamme Goedzak 79

to himself, "He will pay seven florins, and that will
be my first mass for the dead."

And he went on his way, and the blind men likewise.

XXXVI

Finding himself, on the morrow, upon a highway
in the midst of a great crowd of folk, Ulenspiegel
went with them, and soon knew that it was the day of
the pilgrimage of Alsemberg.

He saw poor old women marching backwards,
barefooted, for a florin and for the expiation of the
sins of certain great ladies. On the edge of the high-
way, to the sound of rebecks, viols, and bagpipes,
more than one pilgrim was holding a frying feast and
junketing of bruinbier. And the smoke of delicious stews
mounted towards heaven like a suave incense of food.

But there were other pilgrims, low fellows, needy
and starveling, who, paid by the Church, were walking
backwards for six sols.

A little man, completely bald, with staring eyes and
a savage look, was skipping along backwards behind
them reciting paternosters.

Ulenspiegel, wishing to know why he was mim-
icking the crayfishes in this fashion, planting himself
before him and smiling, jumped in step with him.
The rebecks, fifes, viols, and bagpipes, and the groans
of the pilgrims made the music for the dance.

"Jan van den Duivel," said Ulenspiegel, "is it that
you may more certainly fall that you run in this wise?"

The man made no answer and went on mumbling
his paternosters.

"Perhaps," said Ulenspiegel, "you want to know

8o The Legend of V lens pie gel

how many trees there are along the road. But are
you not counting the leaves also?"

The man, who was reciting a Credo, signed to Ulen-
spiegel to hold his tongue.

"Perhaps," said the latter, still skipping before
him and imitating him, "it is the result of some sudden
madness that you should thus be going the contrary
way to everybody else. But he who would have a
wise answer from a madman is not wise himself. Is
not this true, master of the peeled poll?"

As the man still made no answer, Ulenspiegel went
on skipping, but making so much noise with his boot-
soles that the road reechoed like a wooden box.

"Maybe," said Ulenspiegel, "you might be dumb,
good sir?"

" Ave Maria," said the other, "gratia plena et bene-
dictus fructus ventris tui Jesu"

"Maybe you are deaf as well?" said Ulenspiegel. "We
shall see that : they say deaf men hear neither praises nor
insults. Let us see if the drums of your ears are skin or
brass : thinkest thou, lantern without candle, simulacrum
of a foot-goer, that thou dost resemble a man? That
will be when men are made of rags. Where has such
jaundiced visnomy been ever seen, that peeled head, save
on the gallows field ? Wast thou not hanged of yore ? "

And Ulenspiegel went on dancing, and the man,
who was entering on the ways of wrath, was running
backwards angrily still mumbling his paternosters.

"Maybe," said Ulenspiegel, "thou comprehendest
but high Flemish, I will speak to thee in the low: if
thou art no glutton, thou art a drunkard, if no drunkard,
but a water bibber, thou art foully choked elsewhere;
if not constipated, thou art jerry-go-nimble; if not a

And Lamme Goedzak 81

lecher, a capon; if there be temperance, it was not
that that filled the tun of thy belly, and if in the
thousand million men that people the earth there were
but one only cuckold, it would be thou."

At this word Ulenspiegel sat down upon his seat,
legs in air, for the man had fetched him such a blow
with his fist under the nose that he saw more than a
hundred candles. Then cunningly falling upon him,
despite the weight of his belly, he struck him every-
where, and blows rained like hail upon the thin frame
of Ulenspiegel, whose cudgel fell to the ground.

"Learn by this lesson," said the man, "not to pester
honest folk going on pilgrimage. For you may know
that I go thus to Alsemberg according to custom to
implore Madam Holy Mary to cause to miscarry a
child my wife conceived when I was on my travels.
To win so great a boon, a man must needs walk and
dance backward from the twentieth step from his
home to the foot of the church steps, without speaking.
Alas! now I must begin all over again."

Ulenspiegel having picked up his cudgel said:

"I shall help you, rascal, you who would have Our
Lady serve to kill babes in their mothers' womb."

And he fell to beating the wretched cuckold so
cruelly that he left him for dead on the road.

All this while there rose to heaven the groans of
pilgrims, the sounds of fifes, viols, rebecks, and bag-
pipes, and, like a pure incense, the savour of frying.

XXXVII

Claes, Soetkin, and Nelewere gossiping together about
the ingle, and talked of the pilgrim on his pilgrimage.

VOL.1. G

82 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Daughter," said Soetkin, "why cannot you, by the
might of the spell of youth, keep him always with us ? "

"Alas!" said Nele, "I cannot."

"'Tis because," said Claes, "he hath a counter
charm that drives him to run without ever resting
save for the work of his teeth."

"The cruel, ugly fellow!" sighed Nele.

"Cruel," said Soetkin, "I admit, but ugly, no. If
my son Ulenspiegel has not a Greek or a Roman coun-
tenance, he is all the better for that; for they are
of Flanders his agile feet, of the Frank of Bruges his
keen brown eye, and his nose and his mouth made
by two past masters in the science of humour and
sculpture."

"Who, then," asked Claes, "made him his lazy arms
and his legs too prone to run to pleasure?"

"His heart that is over young," replied Soetkin.

XXXVIII

In these days Katheline by her simples cured an
ox, three sheep, and a pig belonging to Speelman
but could not cure a cow that belonged to Jan Beloen.
The latter accused her of sorcery. He averred that
she had cast a spell on the beast, inasmuch as, while
giving his simples, she caressed and talked to it, doubt-
less in a diabolical speech, for an honest Christian
should not talk to a beast.

The said Jan Beloen added that he was a neighbour
of Speelman's, whose ox, sheep, and pig she had healed,
and if she had killed his cow, it was doubtless at the
instigation of Speelman, jealous to see that his, Bel-
oen's, land was better tilled than his own. Upon

And Lamme Goedzak 83

the testimony of Peter Meulemeester, a man of good
life and conduct, and also of Jan Beloen, certifying
that Katheline was reputed a witch in Damme, and
had doubtless killed the cow, Katheline was arrested
and condemned to be tormented until she should have
confessed her crimes and misdeeds.

She was questioned by a sheriff who was always in a
rage, for he drank brandy all day long. He had
Katheline put upon the first bench of torment in his
presence and before the Fierschare.

The executioner stripped her naked, then shaved her
hair and all her body, looking everywhere to see if she
concealed a charm.

Finding nothing, he fastened her with cords to the
bench. Then she spake:

"I am all shamed to be naked thus before these men,
Madam Mary, grant that I may die!"

Then the executioner put wet cloths upon her
breast, her belly, and her legs, and raising the bench,
he poured hot water into her stomach in such quanti-
ties that she was all swelled up. Then he lowered
the bench again.

The sheriff asked Katheline if she would confess
her crime. She made sign that she would not. The
executioner poured more hot water into her, but she
vomited all of it out again.

Then at the chirurgeon's bidding she was untied.
She did not speak, but struck on her breast to say
the hot water had burned her. When the sheriff
perceived that she had recovered from this first tor-
ment he said to her:

"Confess thou art a witch, and that thou didst
cast a spell upon the cow."

84 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"I will not confess," said she. "I love all dumb
beasts, as much as my poor heart may, and I would
harm myself rather than them, who cannot defend
themselves. I used the needful simples to cure the
cow."

But the sheriff:

"Thou didst give her poison," said he, "for the
cow is dead."

"Master sheriff," answered Katheline, "I am here
before you, in your power. I dare say to you, never-
theless, that a beast can die of sickness, like a man, in
spite of the assistance of the surgeons and the doctors.
And I swear by my Lord Christ who died on the cross
for our sins, that I have wished no harm to this cow,
but sought to cure her by simple remedies."

Then said the sheriff, enraged:

"This devil's hag will not always deny, let her be
put on another bench for the torment!"

And therewith he drank a great glass of brandy.

The executioner made Katheline sit on the lid of
an oaken coffin placed upon trestles. The said lid,
shaped like a roof, was sharp as a blade. A great fire
was burning in the fireplace, for it was then November.

Katheline, seated upon the coffin and a spit of
sharpened wood, was shod with tight shoes of new
leather and set before the fire. When she felt the
sharp wooden edge of the coffin and the pointed spit
entering her flesh, and when the fire heated and shrank
the leather of her shoes, she cried:

"I suffer a thousand pangs! Who will give me
black poison?"

"Put her nearer the fire," said the sheriff. Then
questioning Katheline:

And Lamme Goedzak 85

"How often," said he, "didst thou bestride a broom
to go to the Sabbath? How often didst thou blast
the corn in the ear, the fruit upon the tree, the babe
in the mother's womb? How often didst thou turn
two brothers to sworn foes, and two sisters into rivals
filled with hatred?"

Katheline would have spoken, but could not, and
moved her arms as though to say no. The sheriff then:

"She will only speak when she feels all her witch
fat melt in the fire. Put her nearer."

Katheline cried out. The sheriff said:

"Pray to Satan that he may cool thee."

She made a movement as though she would take
off her shoes that were smoking in the fierceness of
the fire.

"Pray to Satan that he pull off thy shoes," said
the sheriff.

The clock was striking ten, the furious creature's
dinner hour; he went away with the executioner and
the clerk, leaving Katheline alone before the fire, in
the torture chamber.

At eleven they came back and found Katheline
seated stiff and motionless. The clerk said:

"She is dead, I think."

The sheriff ordered the executioner to take Kathe-
line down from the coffin and the shoes from off her
feet. Not being able to pull them off, he cut them
away, and the feet of Katheline were disclosed red
and bleeding.

And the sheriff, thinking of his meal, looked at
her without a word; but presently she recovered her
senses, and falling on the ground and unable to rise
for all her efforts, she said to the sheriff:

86 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Once on a time wouldst fain have had me to wife,
but now thou shalt not have me. Four times three
it is the sacred number, and the thirteenth is the
husband."

Then as the sheriff would have spoken, she said
to him:

"Stay silent, he has hearing finer than the arch-
angel that in heaven counts the heart beats of the just.
Why dost thou come so late? Four times three it is
the sacred number, he slayeth those that desire me."

The sheriff said:

"She receives the devil in her bed."

"She is out of her wits with the anguish of the
torment," said the clerk.

Katheline was taken back to prison. Three days
after, the sheriff's court being assembled in the Vier-
schare, Katheline after deliberation was condemned to
the fire.

The executioner and his assistants brought her to
the marketplace of Damme where there was a scaffold
on which she mounted. In the marketplace were the
provost, the herald, and the judges.

The trumpets of the town herald sounded three
times, and turning to the people he announced:

"The magistrate of Damme, having had compassion
on the woman Katheline, has been pleased not to
exact punishment according to the extreme rigour
of the law of the town, but in order to bear witness
that she is a witch, her hair shall be burned, she shall
pay twenty gold carolus by way of fine, and shall be
banished for three years from the precincts of Damme
under pain of losing one limb."

And the people applauded this harsh lenity.

And Lamme Goedzak 87

The executioner thereupon bound Katheline to
the stake, set a wig of tow upon her shaven head and
set it on fire. And the tow burned long and Kathe-
line cried out and wept.

Then she was unbound and taken without the
boundaries of Damme upon a cart, for her feet were
burned.

XXXIX

Ulenspiegel being now at Bois-le-Duc in Brabant,
the magnates of the town would fain have appointed
him their fool, but he would none of this dignity.
"Pilgrim on pilgrimage cannot play fool as a per-
manency, but only at inns and on the highways."

At this same time Philip, who was King of England,
came to visit the countries of his future inheritance,
Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Holland, and Zealand.
He was then in his twenty-ninth year; in his grayish
eyes dwelt sour melancholy, savage dissimulation,
and cruel resolution. Cold was his countenance, and
stiff his head covered with tawny hair; stiff, too, his
meagre torso and spindle limbs. Slow was his speech
and thick as though he had wool in his mouth.

Amid tourneys, jousts, and feastings, he visited the
joyous duchy of Brabant, the rich county Flanders,
and his other seignories. Everywhere he swore to
observe and confirm the privileges; but when at Brus-
sels he took oath upon the Testament to observe the
Golden Bull of Brabant his hand clenched so tight
that he must needs take it away from the sacred book.

He went to Antwerp, where they put up twenty-three
triumphal arches to receive him. The city disbursed
two hundred and eighty-seven thousand florins to pay

88 The Legend of U lens pie gel

for these arches and for the costumes of eighteen
hundred and seventy-nine merchants all clad in crim-
son velvet and for the rich livery of four hundred and
sixteen lackeys and the brilliant silk trappings of four
thousand burgesses, all clad alike. Many feasts were
given by the rhetoricians of all the cities in the Low
Countries, or nearly all.

There were seen, with their fools male and female,
the Prince of Love, of Tournai, mounted upon a sow
that was called Astarte; the King of Fools, of Lille,
who led a horse by the tail and walked behind; the
Prince of Pleasure, of Valenciennes, who amused him-
self counting how many times his donkey broke wind;
the Abbot of Mirth, of Arras, who drank Brussels
wine from a flask shaped like a breviary, and that was
gay reading; the Abbot of the Paux-Pourvus, of Ath,
who was provided with linen full of holes and boots
down at heel, but had a sausage with which he made
good provision for his belly; the Provost of Madcaps,
a young man mounted on a shy goat, and who trotting
in the crowd got many a thwack because of her; the
Abbot of the Silver Dish, from Quesnoy, who mounted
on his horse pretended to be sitting in a dish, say-
ing "there is no beast so big that fire cannot cook
him."

And they played all kinds of harmless foolery, but
the King remained sad and severe.

That same evening, the Markgrave of Antwerp,
the burgomasters, captains and deans, assembled to-
gether to find out some game or play that might win
Philip the King to laughter.

Said the Markgrave:

"Have ye not heard tell of a certain Pierkin Jacob-

And Lamme Goedzak 89

sen, the town-fool of Bois-le-Duc, and far renowned
for his merry tricks?"

"Yes," said the others.

"Well!" said the Markgrave, "let us summon him
to come hither, and bid him do us some nimblewitted
turn, since our own fool has his boots stuffed with lead."

"Let us summon him hither," said they.

When the messenger from Antwerp came to Bois-
le-Duc, they told him that the fool Pierkin had snuffed
out his candle with over-much laughing, but that there
was in the town another fool, a bird of passage, called
Ulenspiegel. The messenger went to look for him in
a tavern where he was eating a fricassee of mussels
and making a petticoat for a girl with the shells.

Ulenspiegel was delighted when he knew that it
was for him the courier of the commune had come all
the way from Antwerp, mounted upon a fine horse
of Vuern-Ambacht and leading another by the bridle.

Without setting foot to ground, the courier asked him
if he knew where to find a new trick to make King
Philip laugh.

"I have a mine of them under my hair," answered
Ulenspiegel.

They went away together. The two horses galloping
loose-reined brought Ulenspiegel and the courier to
Antwerp.

Ulenspiegel made his appearance before the Mark-
grave, the two burgomasters, and the officials of the
commune.

"What do you intend to do?" asked the Markgrave.

"Fly in the air," replied Ulenspiegel.

"How will you set about this?" asked the Mark-
grave.

90 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Do you know," asked Ulenspiegel, "what is worth
less than a burst bladder?"

"I do not know," said the Markgrave.

"A secret that has been let out," replied Ulenspiegel.

In the meanwhile, the heralds of the games, mounted
upon their handsome steeds caparisoned with crimson
velvet, rode through all the main streets, squares, and
carfaxes of the city, sounding clarions and with beat
of drum. In this fashion they announced to the
signorkes and the signorkinnes that Ulenspiegel, the
fool of Damme, would fly in the air at the quay, there
being present upon a staging King Philip and his high
illustrious and distinguished company.

Over against the staging there was a house built in
the Italian fashion, with a gutter running along the
whole length of the roof. A garret window opened upon
the gutter.

Ulenspiegel on this day went through the city every-
where riding upon an ass. A footman ran alongside
him. Ulenspiegel had donned the fine robe of crimson
silk the magnates of the commune had given him.
His headgear was a hood, crimson as well, on which
were seen two asses' ears with a bell on the tip of each.
He wore a necklace of copper medallions embossed
with the shield of Antwerp. On the sleeves of the robe
there tinkled at each pointed elbow a gilt bell. He had
shoes with gilt soles, and a bell at the tip of each.

His ass was caparisoned with crimson silk and on each
thigh carried the shield of Antwerp broidered in fine
gold.

The footman brandished a donkey's head in one hand
and in the other a branch at the end of which chimed
a cowbell from a forest-bred cow.

And Lamme Goedzak 91

Ulenspiegel, leaving his ass and his footman in the
street, climbed up into the gutter.

There, shaking his bells, he opened out his arms
as if he was on the point of flying. Then leaning down
towards King Philip, he said:

"I thought there was no fool in Antwerp save only
me, but I perceive the town is full of them. If you had
told me you were going to fly, I should not have be-
lieved you; but let a fool come and tell you he will do
it, and you believe him. How would you have me
fly, since I have no wings?"

Some laughed, others swore, but all said:

"This fool says what is none the less quite true."

But King Philip remained stiff as a king of stone.

And the magnates of the commune said softly one
to the other:

"There was no need to make such great festival
for such a sour-face."

And they gave three florins to Ulenspiegel, who
departed, first perforce restoring to them the robe
of crimson silk.

"What are three florins in the pouch of a young man
but a snowball before a fire, a full bottle in front of you,
wide-throated drinkers? Three florins! The leaves fall
from the trees and sprout again upon them, but florins
leave pouches and return thither no more : the butterflies
flitter away with the summer time, and the florins, too,
although they weigh two estrelins and nine as."

So saying, Ulenspiegel contemplated his three florins
closely.

"What a haughty mien," murmured he, "hath
the Emperor Charles upon the obverse, cuirassed and
helmeted, holding a sword in one hand and in the other

92 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

the globe of this poor earthly world ! He is by the grace
of God Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, and so
forth, and he is most gracious towards these our
countries, this emperor in the cuirass. And here on
the reverse is a shield on which are graven and dis-
played the arms of a duke, count, etc., pertaining to his
divers possessions, with this goodly device: Da mihi
virtutem contra hostes tuos: 'Give me strength against
thy enemies.' He was valiant indeed against those
of the reformed that have goods to confiscate, and he
inheriteth them. Ah! were I the Emperor Charles,
I would have florins minted for everybody, and each
man being rich, no one should work more."

But Ulenspiegel looked in vain at the lovely money;
it was gone towards the land of ruin to the clinking of
quart pots and the chiming of bottles.

XL

While he displayed himself on the gutter all clad in
crimson silk, Ulenspiegel had not seen Nele who from
the crowd was looking on him smiling. She was living
at this time at Borgerhout near Antwerp, and thought
that if some fool was to fly before King Philip, it could
only be her friend Ulenspiegel.

As he marched along the way, plunged in reverie, he
did not hear a sound of hastening steps behind him,
but felt two hands that were laid flat upon his eyes.
Guessing Nele instinctively:

"Are you there?" said he.

"Aye," she said, "I have been running behind you
ever since you came out of the city. Come with me."

"But where," said he, "where is Katheline?"

And Lamme Goedzak 93

"Thou dost not know it," said she, "that she was
tortured unjustly for a witch, then banished out of
Damme for three years, and that they burned her feet
and burned tow upon her head. I tell thee this that
thou mayest have no fear of her, for she is out of her
wits because of the cruel torment. Often she spends
whole hours looking at her feet and saying: 'Hanske,
my sweet devil, see what they did to thy dear. And
her poor feet are like two wounds.' Then she weeps,
saying: 'Other women have a husband or a lover,
but I live at this moment as a widow.' I tell her then
that Hanske will hate her if she speaks of him before
other folk than me. And she obeys me like a child
save when she sees a cow or an ox, the cause of her
torture; then she flees running without stay, and noth-
ing can stop her, fences, streams, or ditches, till she
falls for weariness in some corner of the wayside or
against the wall of a farm, whither I go and take her
up and dress her poor feet that are by then all bleeding.
And I deem that in burning the hank of tow they
burned also her brain in her head."

And both were grieved thinking upon Katheline.

They came to her and saw her sitting upon a bench
in the sun against the wall of a house. Ulenspiegel
said to her:

"Do you know me?"

"Four times three," quoth she, "it is the sacred
number, and the thirteenth is Thereb. Who art
thou, child of this wicked world?"

"I am Ulenspiegel," he answered, "the son of Soetkin
and of Claes."

She shook her head and knew him; then beckoning
him close with her finger and bending to his ear:

94 The Legend of U lens pie gel

"If thou see him whose kisses are as snow, tell him
to come back to me, Ulenspiegel."

Then showing her burned hair:

"I am ill," she said; "they have taken my wits,
but when he comes he will fill my head again, which
now is all empty. Hearest thou? it sounds like a bell;
it is my soul knocking at the door to depart, because it
burns. If Hanske comes and has no mind to fill me
my head again, I will tell him to make a hole in it
with a knife: the soul that is there, ever knocking to
come out, grieveth me cruelly, and I shall die, yea.
And now I never sleep, and I look for him always, and
he must fill me my head again, yea."

And sinking down again, she groaned.

And the peasants that were coming back from the
fields to go to dinner, while the church bell called them
to it, passed before Katheline saying:

"There is the madwife."

And they made the sign of the cross.

And Nele and Ulenspiegel wept, and Ulenspiegel
must needs go on upon his pilgrimage.

XLI

At this time as he pilgrimaged he entered into the ser-
vice of one Josse, surnamed the Kwaebakker, the cross
baker, because of his vinegar face. The Kzvaebakker
gave him three stale loaves every week for his food,
and for lodging a sloping garret under the roof, where
the rain rained and the wind blew marvellously.

Seeing himself so evilly entreated, Ulenspiegel played
him different tricks and this among them. When they
bake in the early morning, the flour must be bolted over

And Lamme Goedzak 95

night. One night, then, when the moon was shining,
Ulenspiegel asked for a candle to see to work and had
this answer from his master:

" Bolt the flour in the light of the moon."

Ulenspiegel, obeying him, bolted the flour upon the
earth, where the moonlight was shining.

In the morning the Kwaebakker, coming to see how
much work Ulenspiegel had done, found him still bolting
and said to him:

"Does flour now cost nothing at all that it should be
bolted on the ground like this?"

"I bolted the flour in the moonlight as you had bid-
den me," answered Ulenspiegel.

The baker replied:

"Pack-donkey, it was in a sieve you should have done
it."

"I thought the moon was a new-fangled kind of
sieve," replied Ulenspiegel. "But there will be no
great loss, I will scrape up the flour."

"It is too late," answered the Kwaebakker, "to get
ready the dough and to bake it."

Ulenspiegel rejoined:

" Baes, our neighbour's dough is ready in the mill;
shall I go and take that?"

"Go to the gallows," replied the Kwaebakker, "and
fetch what is on that."

"I go, baes," answered Ulenspiegel.

He ran to the gallows field, found there the dried hand
of a robber, brought it to the Kwaebakker, and said:

"Here is a hand of glory that maketh invisible all
those that carry it. Wilt thou henceforward conceal
thy evil disposition?"

"I shall inform the commune against you," replied

06 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

the Kwaebakker, "and you will see that you have
infringed upon the rights of the overlord."

When they were both before the burgomaster, the
Ktvaebakker, wishing to tell the whole rosary of Ulen-
spiegel's misdeeds and delinquencies, saw that he was
opening his eyes to their widest. He became so angry
at this that interrupting his deposition he said to him:

"What do you want ? "

Ulenspiegel replied :

"You told me you would accuse me in such wise that
I 'would see.' I am trying to see, that is why I look."

"Out of my eyes," cried the baker.

"If I was in your eyes," answered Ulenspiegel, "I
could only come out, seeing that you shut them, through
your nostrils."

The burgomaster, seeing that this day was the day
for the fair of japes, would listen to them no longer.

Ulenspiegel and the Kwaebakker went away together,
the Kwaebakker raised his cudgel on him; Ulenspiegel
dodged it, saying:

" Baes, since it is with blows my flour is to be sifted,
you take the bran of it — it is your anger: I keep the
white — it is my gaiety."

Then showing him his nether face:

"And here," he added, "is the door of the oven, if
you want to bake."

XLII

Ulenspiegel as he pilgrimaged would gladly have
turned highway robber, but he found the stones too
heavy to carry.

He was trudging by chance on the road to Audenaerde
where there was then a garrison of Flemish reiters

And Lamme Goedzak 97

charged with the defence of the town against the French
bands that ravaged the country like locusts.

The reiters had at their head a certain captain, a
Frisian born, by name Kornjuin. They also overran
the low country and pillaged the peoples, who were thus,
as usual, devoured on both sides.

Everything was good in their eyes: hens, chickens,
ducks, pigeons, calves, and pigs. One day, as they were
coming back laden with plunder, Kornjuin and his
lieutenants saw at the foot of a tree Ulenspiegel lying
asleep and dreaming of fricassees.

"What do you do for a living?" asked Kornjuin.

"I'm dying of hunger," replied Ulenspiegel.

"What is your trade?"

"To go on pilgrimage for my sins, look on at others
toiling, dance on the rope, paint pretty faces, carve knife
handles, play the rommel-pot, and blow the trumpet."

Now if Ulenspiegel spoke so bold of trumpets, it was
because he had learned that the post of watchman to
the Castle of Audenaerde was vacant after the death of
an old man who had held it.

Kornjuin said to him:

"You shall be trumpeter to the town."

Ulenspiegel went with him and was posted on the
tallest tower on the ramparts, in a little box of a cell
well ventilated by the four winds, all except the south
wind that fanned it only with one wing.

He was enjoined to sound the trumpet as soon as he
might see an enemy coming and, to that end, to keep
his head clear and his eyes keen; and so they did not give
him overmuch either to eat or to drink.

The captain and his soldiers stayed in the tower and
feasted there all day long at the expense of the low

VOL.1. H

98 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

country. There was killed and eaten there more than
one capon whose one crime was to be plump. Ulen-
spiegel, always forgotten and forced to be satisfied with
his meagre soup, found no pleasure in the smell of the
sauces. The French came and carried off a great deal of
cattle; Ulenspiegel did not sound his trumpet.

Kornjuin climbed up to his cell and said to him:

"Why did you not sound the trumpet?"

Ulenspiegel said to him:

"I give you no thanks for your provender."

The next day, the captain ordered a great feast for
himself and his soldiers, but Ulenspiegel was still for-
gotten. They were on the point of beginning to gorge,
when Ulenspiegel blew his trumpet.

Kornjuin and his soldiers, thinking it was the French,
left their wines and meats, leapt upon their horses,
rode hastily out of the town, but found nothing in the
country but an ox chewing the cud in the sun, and
brought him back with them.

Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel had filled himself with wines
and meats. The captain as he returned saw him stand-
ing, smiling, and his legs tottering at the door of the
feast hall. He said to him:

"It is traitor's work to sound the alarm when you
do not see the enemy, and not to sound it when you do
see them."

"Master captain," said Ulenspiegel, "I am in my
tower so puffed out and swollen up with the four winds
that I could float like a bladder if I had not blown in
my trumpet to ease me. Have me hanged now, or
another time when you need an ass's skin for your
drums."

Kornjuin went away without a word.

And Lamme Goedzak 99

Meanwhile, news came to Audenaerde that the gra-
cious Emperor Charles was about to come to the town,
with a most noble company. On this occasion the
sheriffs gave Ulenspiegel a pair of spectacles that he
might the better discern His Sacred Majesty's coming.
Ulenspiegel was to blow three blasts on the trumpet as
soon as he saw the Emperor marching upon Luppeg-
hem, which is a quarter of a league away from the
Borg-poort.

Thus the townsfolk would have time to ring their
bells, to make ready fireworks, to put the meats in the
oven, and to broach the hogsheads.

One day, towards noon, the wind was blowing from
Brabant and the sky was clear: Ulenspiegel saw on the
road leading to Luppeghem a great band of horsemen
mounted on caracoling steeds, the long feathers in their
caps streaming in the wind. Some carried banners.
He who rode proudly at their head wore a bonnet of
cloth of gold with great plumes. He was arrayed in
brown velvet broidered with brocatel.

Ulenspiegel put on his spectacles and saw it was the
Emperor Charles the Fifth who was coming to give
the folk of Audenaerde permission to serve him their
choicest wines and their choicest viands.

His whole band was moving leisurely, snuffing up
the fresh air that awakens appetite, but Ulenspiegel
thought that they made good cheer by custom and
might very well fast for one day without perishing. So
he looked on at them as they came and did not blow his
trumpet.

They came on laughing and talking freely, whilst
His Sacred Majesty looked into his stomach to see if
there was enough room for the dinner of the Audenaerde

loo The Legend of Ulenspiegel

folk. He appeared surprised and displeased that no
bell rang to announce his coming.

At this juncture a peasant entered the town running,
to announce that he had seen a French band riding in
the neighbourhood and marching upon the town to
devour and pillage everything.

At this word the porter fastened the gate and sent a
servant of the commune to warn the other porters of the
town. But the reiters feasted without knowing any-
thing.

His Majesty was still coming on, annoyed not to
hear bells and cannon and arquebuses sounding and
thundering and volleying. Straining his ears in vain,
he heard nothing but the chime marking the half hour.
He arrived before the gate, found it shut and beat on
it with his fist to have it opened.

And the lords in his retinue, angry like him, mut-
tered sour speeches. The porter who was on the sum-
mit of the ramparts cried out to them that if they did
not put an end to this hubbub he would spray them
with grapeshot to cool their impatience.

But His Majesty in a fury:

"Blind hog," said he, "dost thou not know thy
Emperor?"

The porter answered :

That the least hoggish are not always the most gilded;
that he knew, besides, that the French were good mock-
ers by their nature, since the Emperor Charles, at this
moment waging war in Italy, could not be at the gates
of Audenaerde.

Thereupon Charles and the lords cried out the more,
saying:

"If thou dost not open, we shall roast thee on the

And Lamme Goedzak 101

point of a spear. And thou shalt eat thy keys first and
foremost."

At the noise they were making, an old man-at-arms
came out from the artillery room and showing his
nose above the wall:

"Porter," said he, "you are all wrong, it is our Em-
peror yonder; I know him well, though he has aged
since he took Maria Van der Gheynst from here to the
Castle of Lallaing."

The porter fell down stiff as death with terror, and
the man-at-arms seized his keys and went to open the
gate.

The Emperor asked why he had been forced to wait
so long: the man-at-arms having told him, His Majesty
ordered him to shut the gate again, and to fetch him
the reiters of Kornjuin, whom he commanded to march
before him beating their tambourines and playing their
fifes.

Soon one by one the bells awoke to sound full peal.
Thus preceded, His Majesty came with an imperial din
to the Great Marketplace. The burgomasters and
sheriffs were all assembled there; the sheriff Ian Guige-
laar came out at the noise. He went back into the
council chamber saying:

" Keyser Karel is alhier ! The Emperor Charles is
here!"

Sorely affrighted to hear these tidings, the burgomas-
ters, sheriffs, and councillors came out from the Town-
hall to go in a body to greet the Emperor, while their
men ran throughout the whole town to have the fire-
works got ready, to put the chickens to the fire, and to
broach the casks.

Men, women, and children ran everywhere crying:

IO2 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

" Keyser Karel is op't groot marckt! The Emperor
is in the Great Market!'*

Ere long great was the crowd in the square.

The Emperor, in deep anger, asked the two burgo-
masters if they did not deserve to be hanged for thus
failing in respect to their sovereign.

The burgomasters replied that they deserved hanging
indeed, but that Ulenspiegel, the trumpeter of the tower,
deserved it much more, seeing that upon the rumour
of His Majesty's coming he had been stationed there,
equipped with a good pair of barnacles, with express
instructions that he should sound his trumpet three
times as soon as he should see the imperial convoy ap-
proaching. But he had done nothing of this.

The Emperor, still angry, asked them to send for
Ulenspiegel.

"Why," said he, "having such clear spectacles, didst
thou not blow a point on the trumpet at my coming?"

So saying, he passed his hand over his eyes, because
of the brightness of the sun, and looked at Ulenspiegel.

Ulenspiegel also passed his hand over his eyes, and
replied that since he had seen His Sacred Majesty look-
ing between his fingers, he had no longer desired to
make use of the spectacles.

The Emperor told him he was to be hanged, the town
porter said it was well done, and the burgomasters were
so terrified at this sentence that they made no word of
answer, neither to approve it nor to oppose it.

The executioner and his assistants were sent for.
They came carrying a ladder and a new rope, seized
Ulenspiegel by the collar, as he walked in front of
Kornjuin's hundred reiters, keeping very quiet and say-
ing his prayers. But they mocked him bitterly.

And Lamme Goedzak 103

The people who were following said:

"It is a great cruelty to put to death a poor young
man in this way for so small a fault."

And the weavers were there in great numbers and
under arms, and they said:

"We shall not leave Ulenspiegel to be hanged: it is
contrary to the law of Audenaerde."

By now they were come to the gallows field, Ulen-
spiegel was hoisted up on the ladder, and the execu-
tioner put the rope on him. The weavers flocked up
around the gallows. The provost was there on horse-
back, resting the rod of justice on his horse's shoulder,
the wand wherewith at the Emperor's word he should
give the signal for the execution.

All the assembled people cried out:

"Mercy! mercy for Ulenspiegel!"

Ulenspiegel upon his ladder said:

"Pity! gracious Emperor!"

The Emperor lifted his hand and said:

"If this rascal asks me for something I cannot do, he
shall have his life!"

"Speak, Ulenspiegel," cried the people.

The women wept and said:

"He can ask for nothing, poor fellow, for the Em-
peror can do all things."

And all said:

"Speak, Ulenspiegel!"

"Sacred Majesty," said Ulenspiegel, "I shall ask thee
neither for money, nor for lands, nor for life, but only
one thing, for which thou must not, if I dare to say it,
have me whipped nor laid on the rack, before I depart
to the land of spirits."

"I promise thee this," said the Emperor.

IO4 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Majesty," said Ulenspiegel, "I ask that before I
be hanged, you shall come and kiss the mouth with
which I speak no Flemish."

The Emperor, laughing like all the people, replied:

"I cannot do what thou dost ask, and thou shalt
not hang, Ulenspiegel."

But he condemned the burgomasters and sheriffs to
wear spectacles on the back of their heads for six
months, in order, said he, that if the Audenaerde folk do
not see in front, they may at least see behind.

And by imperial decree, these spectacles are still seen
in the arms of the town.

And Ulenspiegel went away modestly, with a little
bag of money the women had given him.

XLIII

Ulenspiegel being at Liege, in the fish market, he
followed after a big young man who with a net bag
under one arm filled with every kind of poultry was
filling another with haddocks, trout, eels, and pike.

Ulenspiegel knew Lamme Goedzak.

"What are you doing here, Lamme?" said he.

"You know," said he, "how many Flanders folk
have come to this kind country of Liege; for me, I
follow my love here. And you?"

"I seek a master to serve for my bread," replied
Ulenspiegel.

"That is very dry food," said Lamme. "It would
be better for you to pass from dish to mouth a rosary
of ortolans with a thrush for Credo."

"You are rich?" asked Ulenspiegel.

Lamme Goedzak answered :

And Lamme Goedzak 105

"I have lost my father, my mother, and my young
sister that used to beat me so soundly; I shall inherit
their goods, and I live with a one-eyed servant woman,
a great doctor in fricassees."

"Would you like me to carry your fish and your
poultry?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"Aye," said Lamme.

And together they wandered about the market.

Suddenly Lamme said:

"Do you know why you are mad?"

"No," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Because you are carrying your fish and your
poultry in your hand, instead of carrying them in
your belly."

"You have said well, Lamme," said Ulenspiegel;
"but since I have no longer even bread, the ortolans
won't look at me now."

"You shall eat them, Ulenspiegel," said Lamme,
"and you shall serve me if my cook will have you."

While they were wending their way, Lamme pointed
out to Ulenspiegel a pretty, neat, and lovesome girl,
in silk attire, who was hastening about the market
here and there and looked at Lamme with her soft eyes.

An old man, her father, walked behind her, laden
with two net bags, one of fish, the other of game.

"That one," said Lamme, pointing to her, "I am
going to make her my wife."

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "I know her, she is Flem-
ish from Zotteghem, she lives in the rue Vinave-
d'lsle, and the neighbours say that her mother sweeps
the street, in front of the house, instead of her, and that
her father irons her shifts."

But Lamme made no answer and said gleefully:

io6 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"She looked at me."

They came together to Lamme's house, near the
Pont-des-Arches, and knocked at the door. A one-
eyed serving woman came and opened to them. Ulen-
spiegel saw she was old, lean and long, flat and fierce.

"La Sanginne," said Lamme to her, "will you have
this one to help you in your work?"

"I will take him on trial," said she.

"Take him, then," said he, "and make him know
and test the delights of your cookery."

La Sanginne then put three black puddings on the
table, a quart of cervoise ale, and a big hunch of bread.

While Ulenspiegel ate, Lamme also munched a
black pudding.

"Do you know," said he, "where our soul hath
its habitation?"

"No, Lamme," said Ulenspiegel.

"In our stomach it dwelleth," said Lamme, "to
delve therein without ceasing and ever renew in our
bodies the force of life. And what are its best com-
panions? They are all good and choice eatables and
wine of the Meuse over and above."

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "black puddings are agree-
able company for the lonely soul."

"He wants more of them, give him some, la San-
ginne," said Lamme.

La Sanginne gave him more, this time white puddings.

While he was eating largely, Lamme, grown pensive,
said:

"When I die, my belly will die with me, and there
below in purgatory, I shall be left fasting, carrying my
paunch about with me all flabby and empty."

"The black seem to me better," said Ulenspiegel.

And Lamme Goedzak 107

"You have eaten six," replied la Sanginne, "and
you shall have no more."

"You know," said Lamme, "that you will be well
treated here and will eat like myself."

"I will remember that word," said Ulenspiegel.

Ulenspiegel, seeing that he ate the same as Lamme,
was happy and content. The black puddings had
given him so high a spirit that on that day he made
all the caldrons, pans, and cooking pots shine and
glitter like so many suns.

Living well in this house, he delighted to haunt
kitchen and cellar, leaving the garret to the cats.
One day, la Sanginne had two fowls to roast and bade
Ulenspiegel turn the spit while she went to the market
to fetch herbs for the seasoning.

The two fowls being roasted, Ulenspiegel ate one.
La Sanginne, returning, said:

"There were two fowls, now I see only one."

"Open your other eye, you will see both of them,"
replied Ulenspiegel.

She went all in a rage to tell the business to Lamme
Goedzak, who came down into the kitchen and said
to Ulenspiegel:

"Why do you make game of my servant? There
were two fowls."

"There were of a truth two, Lamme," said Ulen-
spiegel, "but when I came here you told me I should
drink and eat as yourself. There were two* fowls;
I have eaten one, you will eat the other; my pleasure
is past, yours is to come; are you not better off than I ?"

"Yea," said Lamme, smiling, "but do everything
la Sanginne bids you, and you will have but half tasks."

"I shall watch that, Lamme," replied Ulenspiegel.

io8 The Legend of U lens pie gel

And so, every time that la Sanginne bade him do
anything, he only did the half of it; if she told him to
draw two buckets of water from the well, he brought
back only one; if she told him to go and fill a jug
of cervoise from the cask, he poured half of it down
his throat on the way and so on with the rest.

At length la Sanginne, grown tired of these ways,
told Lamme that if this good-for-naught remained in
the house, she would go away on the spot.

Lamme went down to Ulenspiegel and said to him:

"You must depart, my son, although you have come
to look well in this house. Listen to that cock crowing,
it is two o'clock of the afternoon, it is a presage of
rain. I would fain not turn you out of doors in this
ill weather that is about to come upon us; but con-
sider, my son, that la Sanginne by her fricassees is
the warden of my life; I cannot, without risking a
speedy death, allow her to leave me. Go, then, my
boy, with God's grace, and to enliven your way take
these three florins and this string of saveloys."

And Ulenspiegel went away grieving, regretting
Lamme and his fleshpots.

XLIV

November came to Damme and elsewhere, but
the winter was tardy. No snow, no rain, nor cold
weather; the sun shone from morning to evening
without dimming: the children rolled about in the
dust of the streets and the highways; at the hour of
repose, after supper, the merchants, shopkeepers,
goldsmiths, wheelwrights, and artisans came out upon
their doorsteps to look on the sky that was always
blue, the trees whose leaves were still not falling, the

And Lamme Goedzak 109

storks standing up on the ridges of the roofs, and
the swallows that had not yet gone away. The roses
had flowered thrice, and for the fourth time were in
bud; the nights were warm, the nightingale had not
ceased to sing.

The folk of Damme said:

"Winter is dead, let us burn winter."

And they built a giant figure with a bear's face,
a long beard of shavings, a thick shock head of flax.
They clothed him in white garments and burned
him with great ceremony.

Claes was steeped in melancholy, he blessed not
the sky that was ever blue, nor the swallows that
would not depart. For now nobody in Damme was
burning charcoal save for cooking, and each having
enough did not go to buy from Claes, who had dis-
bursed all his savings to pay for his stock.

So, if standing on his doorstep, the coalman felt the
tip of his nose grow chilly in some pufF of sharpish wind :

"Ah ! " he would say, " it is my bread coming to me ! "

But the sharp wind would not continue to blow,
and the sky stayed always blue, and the leaves would
not fall. And Claes refused to sell his stock at half
price to the miser Grypstuiver, the dean of the fish-
mongers. And soon bread began to lack in the cottage.

XLV

But King Philip was not hungry, and ate pastries
by the side of his wife, ugly Mary, of the royal house
of the Tudors. He did not love her for love, but
hoped by begetting a child on this miserable creature
to give the English nation a Spanish monarch.

no The Legend of U lens pie gel

He loathed this union which was a union of a paving
stone and of a burning coal. Still, they were suffi-
ciently united to have poor Protestants burned and
drowned by hundreds.

When Philip was not away from London, or slipped
out in disguise to wallow in some evil haunt, the bed-
time hour brought the wedded pair together.

Then Queen Mary, attired in fine linen of Tournai
and Irish lace, would lie down supine upon the nuptial
couch, while Philip would stand before her rigid as
a post, and look if he could not see in his wife some
sign or symptom of motherhood; but seeing none
he was wroth, said no word, and stared at his
nails.

Then the barren ghoul spoke tenderly and with
her eyes, which she sought to make soft, begged the
frosty Philip for love. Tears, cries, entreaties, she
spared nothing to win a lukewarm caress from him
who loved her not at all.

Vainly, joining her hands, she dragged herself at
his feet; in vain, like a woman out of her wits, she
wept and laughed together to soften him; nor the
laugh nor the tears melted the stone of that hard
heart.

In vain, like an amorous snake, she coiled her
thin arms about him and clasped against her flat breast
the narrow cage in which dwelt the stunted soul
of the bloody king; he budged no more than if he
had been stock or stone.

She tried, poor ugly thing, to make herself alluring;
she called him by all the sweet names that women
wild with love give the lover of their choice; Philip still
stared at his nails.

And Lamme Goedzak in

Sometimes he answered:

"Will you not have any children?"

At that word, Mary's head fell forward on her breast.

"Is it my fault," said she, "if I am barren? Take
pity upon me, I live a widow's life."

"Why have you no children?" said Philip.

Then the Queen fell on the carpet like one smitten
with death. And in her eyes were only tears, and
she would have wept blood, if she had been able,
the poor ghoul.

And in this wise God avenged upon their murderers
the victims with which they had strewn the soil of
England.

XLVI

The rumour ran among the people that the Em-
peror Charles was minded to take away from the
monks the free heirship of all who died in their con-
vents, which mightily displeased the Pope.

Ulenspiegel being then upon the banks of the Meuse
thought that the Emperor thus reaped his profit
on all sides, since he was the heir when the family
did not inherit. He sate him down on the bank
of the river and cast into it a well-baited line. Then
munching an ancient piece of brown bread, he re-
gretted that he had no wine of Romagna to wash it
down withal, but he bethought him that a man cannot
always have his comforts.

However, he tossed some of his bread into the
water, saying that he who eats without sharing his
meal with his neighbour is not worthy to have victual
to eat.

Up came a gudgeon, that first came to nose at a

112 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

crumb, licked it all about and opened up his innocent
mouth, believing, doubtless, that the bread would
fall into it of its own accord. While he was thus
gazing into the air, he was all at once gulped down
by a treacherous pike that darted out on him like
an arrow.

The pike did the same to a carp that was catching
flies in their flight, heedless of any danger. Being
thus nobly replete, he remained motionless and still,
dilly-dallying, scorning the small fry that in any case
made haste to flee from his presence with all their
fins. While he was basking in this fashion, upon
him came swift, voracious jaws agape, a fasting pike
that with one bound hurled himself upon him. A
fierce battle was joined between them: undying jaw
strokes were given and taken; the water ran red
with their blood. The pike that had dined could ill
defend himself against the pike that was fasting; and
the latter having hauled off, returned with a rush
and flung himself like a bullet on his adversary, who,
awaiting him with wide-open jaws, swallowed his
head half way, and would fain have got rid of it
again, but could not because of his backward slanting
teeth. And both thrashed about miserably.

Thus interlocked together, they saw not a stout
hook that, fastened to a silk twine, rose up from the
bottom of the water, sank deep in under the fin of
the pike that had dined, drew him out of the water
with his adversary, and cast them both rudely on
the grass together.

Ulenspiegel, as he killed them, said:

"Pikes, my dears, would you two be the Pope
and the Emperor devouring each the other, and would

And Lamme Goedzak 113

not I be the people who in God's hour seize you on
the hook, both of you amid your battles?"

XLVII

Meanwhile Katheline, who had not left Borgerhout,
never ceased from wandering through the outskirts
of the place, still saying: "Hanske, my man, they
have made a fire upon my head: make a hole in it
that my soul may win out. Alas! it beats ever against
it and with every blow it is a cruel pang."

And Nele tended her in her madness, and by her
side thought sadly of her friend Ulenspiegel.

And at Damme Claes tied his faggots, sold his
charcoal, and many times fell into melancholy, thinking
that the banished Ulenspiegel could not for long and
long come back to their cottage.

Soetkin stayed all day long at the window, looking
if she would not see her son Ulenspiegel coming.

The latter, being arrived in the neighbourhood cf
Cologne, thought that for the moment he had a fancy
for gardening.

He went and offered himself as servant to Jan of
Zuursmoel, who being a captain of landsknechts, had
narrowly escaped hanging in default of ransom and had
an utter horror of hemp, which in the Fleming tongue
was then called kennip.

One day, Jan of Zuursmoel, wishing to show Ulen-
spiegel his tasks, brought him to the end of his garden
and there they saw a cantle of land, next to the garden,
all planted over with green kennip.

Jan of Zuursmoel said to Ulenspiegel:

"Every time you see this ugly plant, you must en-

VOL.I. I

114 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

treat it shamefully, for this it is that serveth for rack
and gallows."

"I will shamefully entreat it," replied Ulenspiegel.

Jan of Zuursmoel being one day at table with certain
gourmand friends of his, the cook said to Ulenspiegel:

"Go to the cellar and get some zennip," which is
mustard.

Ulenspiegel, cunningly taking it kennip instead of
zennip, foully and shamefully entreated the pot of
zennip in the cellar and came back to put it on the
table, not without laughing.

"Why are you laughing?" asked Jan of Zuursmoel.
"Do you think that our nostrils are made of brass?
Eat of this zennip, since it is you that dressed it your-
self."

"I like better things grilled with cinnamon," an-
swered Ulenspiegel.

Jan of Zuursmoel got up to beat him.

"There is," said he, "foulness in this pot of mustard."

" Baes" said Ulenspiegel, "have you no mind of the
day when I went at your heels to the far end of your
garden? There, you bade me, showing the zennip:
'Everywhere you see that plant, entreat it foully,
for this it is that serveth for rack and gallows/ I
did entreat it so, baes, I did entreat it shamefully with
great affronting; do not now go to murder me for my
obedience."

"I said kennip and not zennip," shouted Jan of Zuurs-
moel in a fury.

"Baes, you said zennip and not kennip," retorted
Ulenspiegel.

Thus they argued loud and long, Ulenspiegel speak-
ing humbly, Jan of Zuursmoel screaming like an eagle

And Lamme Goedzak 115

and mixing up zennip, kennip, kemp, zemp, zemp,
kemp, zemp, like a skein of ravelled silk.

And the guests laughed like devils eating cutlets
of Dominican friars and inquisitors' kidneys.

But Ulenspiegel must needs leave Jan of Zuursmoel.

XLVIII

Nele was still always miserable for the sake of her-
self and her witless mother.

Ulenspiegel hired himself to a tailor who said to
him:

"When you sew, sew close, so that I can see nothing.'*

Ulenspiegel went and sat under a cask and there
began to sew.

"That is not what I mean," cried the tailor.

"I am close in a cask; how do you think any one can
see in it?" answered Ulenspiegel.

"Come," said the tailor, "take your seat there on
the table and make your stitches close one to the other
and make the coat like this wolf — " wolf was the name
of a peasant's jerkin.

Ulenspiegel took the jerkin, cut it in pieces and sewed
it so as to give it the semblance and shape of a wolf.

The tailor, seeing this, cried out:

"What have you made, in the devil's name?"

"A wolf," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Evil mocker," said the tailor, "I had told you a
wolf, it is true, but you know that wolf is said of a
peasant's jerkin."

Sometime after he said:

"Boy, cast these sleeves on to this doublet before
you go to your bed."

n6 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Ulenspiegel hung up the doublet on a nail and spent
the whole night throwing the sleeves at it.

The tailor came down to the noise.

"Good-for-naught," said he, "what new ill trick are
you playing me now?"

"Is that an ill trick?" answered Ulenspiegel. "See
those sleeves, I have thrown them all night long
against the doublet, and they don't stick to it yet."

"That is natural," said the tailor. "And that is
why I am throwing you out into the street: see if you
will stick there better than the sleeves did."

XLIX

Meanwhile Nele, when Katheline was in the house
of some kindly neighbour, and well looked after, Nele
used to go far far afield, all alone, as far as Antwerp,
all along by the Scheldt or elsewhere, ever seeking,
both on the river banks and on the dusty highways,
if she could not see her friend Ulenspiegel.

One fair-day, being at Hamburg, he saw merchants
everywhere, and among them certain old Jews living
on usury and old clothes.

Ulenspiegel, desiring to be a merchant, too, saw lying
on the ground some lumps of horse dung and brought
them to his lodging, which was a bastion of the ram-
part wall. There he dried them, and then bought red
silk and green silk and made little bags with them, and
put the horse dung in the bags and tied them with rib-
bon, as if they had been full of musk.

Then with some pieces of board he made himself a
pedlar's tray, hung it about his neck by means of old
cords and came into the market, carrying in front of

And Lamme Goedzak 117

him his tray filled with these sachets. In the evening
to light them up he had a little candle burning in their
midst.

When any came and asked him what he had for sale,
he would reply mysteriously:

"I will tell you, but let us not speak too loud."

"What is it then?" the customers would say.

"These," Ulenspiegel replied, "are prophetical seeds,
fetched straight from Araby into Flanders, and pre-
pared with mighty art by the master Abdul-Medil
of the kin of the great Mahomet."

Certain customers would say one to another:

"He is a Turk."

But the others:

"This is a pilgrim coming out of Flanders," they
would say; "do you not hear it by his speech?"

And the ragged, lousy, wretched poor folk came to
Ulenspiegel and said to him:

"Give us of these prophetical seeds?"

"When you have florins to buy them," answered
Ulenspiegel. And the poor, ragged, lousy, wretched
went away sorrowful, saying:

"There is no content in this world but for the rich."

The tale of these seeds for sale was soon spread
abroad in the market. The citizens said one to
another:

"There is a Flanders man there that hath propheti-
cal seeds blessed at Jerusalem upon the tomb of Our
Lord Jesus, but they say he has no mind to sell them."

And all the good citizens came to Ulenspiegel and
asked him for his seeds.

But Ulenspiegel, who meant to have great profits,
answered that they were not as yet ripened sufficiently,

n8 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

and he had an eye upon two rich Jews that went
wandering about the market.

"I would fain know," said one of the citizens,
"what will come of my ship that is on the sea."

"It will go as far as heaven, if the waves are high
enough," said Ulenspiegel.

Another said, showing him his pretty daughter, all
full of blushes:

"This one will doubtless turn out well?"

"Everything turns to what nature will have,"
replied Ulenspiegel, for he had just seen the girl give
a key to a young man who, puffed up with content,
said to Ulenspiegel:

"Master merchant, give me one of your prophesy-
ing bags, that I may see whether I shall sleep alone to-
night."

"It is written," replied Ulenspiegel, "that he who
soweth the rye of seduction reaps the ergot of cuck-
oldom."

The young man became wrathful.

"What are you talking about?" said he.

"The seeds say," replied Ulenspiegel, "that they
wish thee a happy marriage and a wife that will not
bring thee Vulcan's hat. Dost thou know that head-
gear?'

Then declaiming like a preacher:

"For she," said he, "that giveth earnest upon the
marriage bargain leaves afterwards the whole mer-
chandise to others for nothing."

Hereupon the girl, wishing to pretend assurance:

"Is all that to be seen in the prophesying sachets?"

"There is a key to be seen there also," said Ulen-
spiegel low in her ear.

And Lamme Goedzak 119

But the young man had gone already with the key.

Suddenly Ulenspiegel perceived a thief sneaking
from a pork butcher's stall a sausage an ell long and
putting it under his cloak. But the merchant saw
him not. The thief, full of glee, came to Ulenspiegel
and said to him:

"What are you selling there, prophet of ill?"

"Sachets wherein you shall see that you will be
hanged for loving sausage overly much," replied
Ulenspiegel.

At that word the thief fled swiftly, while the robbed
merchant cried out:

"Stop thief! stop thief!"

But he was too late.

While Ulenspiegel was speaking, the two rich Jews,
who had listened with the sharpest attention, came up
to him and said:

"What sellest thou there, Fleming?"

"Sachets," replied Ulenspiegel.

"What can one see," they asked, "by means of thy
prophetical seeds ? "

"Future events, when one sucks them," replied
Ulenspiegel.

The two Jews consulted one another, and the elder
said to the other:

"We could see thus when our Messiah will come;
that would be a mighty consolement to us. Let us buy
one of these sachets. How much is your price?" said
they.

"Fifty florins," replied Ulenspiegel. "If ye are
not willing to pay this for it, ye may as well be ofF. He

that will not buy the field must leave the dung where
• • »»
it is.

I2O The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Seeing Ulenspiegel so determined, they counted
out his money, took away one of the sachets and hied
them to their place of assembly, whither came all the
Jews hastily flocking, having learned that one of the
two old men had bought a secret device by which
he could discover and announce the coming of the
Messiah.

Apprised of the matter, they would all fain have
sucked at the prophesying sachet without paying; but
the elder of the two Jews, who had bought it and whose
name was Jehu, claimed to do this himself.

"Son of Israel," said he, holding the sachet in his
hand, "the Christians mock at us, we are driven out
from among our fellowmen, and folk cry out after us as
they cry out after thieves. The Philistines would fain
abase us lower than the earth; they spit in our faces, for
God hath cut our bowstrings and shaken the bridle
before us. Must it still be long, Lord, God of Abraham,
of Isaac, and of Jacob, that evil cometh to us when we
look for good, and the shadows fall when we hope for
the light? Wilt thou soon appear upon the earth, di-
vine Messiah? When shall the Christians hide them-
selves in the eves and the holes of the earth because
of the terror they will have of thee and of thy
glory magnifical when thou dost rise up to chastise
them?"

And the Jews began to clamour.

"Come, Messias! Suck, Jehu!"

Jehu sucked, and spewing out, cried lamentably:

"I tell you verily this is nothing else but dung, and
that pilgrim out of Flanders is a robber."

Then all the Jews, rushing up, tore open the sachet
and saw what it contained, and went off in high fury

And Lamme Goedzak 121

to the fair to find Ulenspiegel there, who forsooth had
not awaited their coming.

L

A man of Damme, not being able to pay Claes for his
coal, gave him his most valuable possession, which was
an arbalest with twelve quarrels well pointed to serve
as missiles.

In hours when work was slack Claes went shooting
with the cross bow; more than one hare was killed by
his prowess and turned into a fricassee all through har-
bouring an inordinate love of cabbages.

Then would Claes eat greedily, and Soetkin would
say, looking out upon the empty high road:

"Thyl, my son, dost thou not smell the fragrance of
the sauces? He is an-hungered without doubt at this
hour." And all pensive, she would fain have kept him
his share of the feast.

"If he is hungry," said Claes, "it is his own fault; let
him come back, he shall fare as we do."

Claes kept pigeons; he liked, besides, to hear singing
and chirruping about him, warblers, goldfinches, spar-
rows, and other birds that sing and chatter. And so
he was swift and ready to shoot the buzzards and the
royal sparhawks that were devourers of this poor folk.

Now once when he was measuring coal in the yard,
Soetkin pointed out to him a great bird hovering high
in air above the dove cote.

Claes seized his cross bow and said:

"May the Devil save his Hawkship!"

Having made ready his cross bow, he took his stand
in the yard, following every movement of the bird,
so as not to miss it. The light in the sky was between

122 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

day and night, Claes could only discern a black speck.
He loosed the quarrel and saw a stork come tumbling
down into the yard.

Claes was sorely grieved thereat; but Soetkin was
grieved worse, and cried out:

"Cruel, thou hast slain God's own bird!"

Then she took up the stork, and saw that she was
but wounded in a wing, went to fetch a balsam, and said
while she was dressing the wound:

"Stork, my dear, 'tis not clever of you that we all
love, to hover in the sky like the sparhawk we all
hate. And so poor folks' arrows fly to the wrong
address. Art thou hurt in thy poor wing, stork, that
dost submit so patiently, knowing that our hands are
the loving hands of friends?"

When the stork was healed, she had everything to eat
that she wanted; but she liked best the fish Claes went
and caught in the canal for her. And every time the
bird of God saw him coming, she opened her huge beak.

She followed Claes about like a dog, but stayed in the
kitchen for preference, warming her belly by the fire,
and knocking with her beak on Soetkin's front as she
got the dinner ready, as much as to ask her:

"Is there nothing for me?"

And it was merry to behold this solemn messenger
of good luck wandering about the cottage on her long
stilts.

LI

Now the bad days were come again; Claes was work-
ing alone and sadly on the land, for there was not work
enough for two. Soetkin stayed in the cottage alone,
dressing in every possible way the beans that were their

And Lamme Goedzak 123

daily fare, in order to liven her man's appetite. And
she went singing and laughing so that he should not
suffer to see her sad. The stork stayed close beside her,
mounted on one leg and beak buried in her feathers.

A man on horseback stopped before the cottage; he
was all arrayed in black, very lean, and had an air of
profound sadness.

"Is there any one within?" he asked.

"God bless Your Melancholy," answered Soetkin;
"but am I, for one, a phantom that seeing me here you
should ask if there is any one within ? "

"Where is your father?" asked the horseman.

"If my father's name be Claes, he is out yonder,"
answered Soetkin, "and you see him sowing corn."

The horseman went away, and Soetkin, too, all down-
cast, for she must go for the sixth time to fetch bread
from the baker's without paying for it. When she came
back thence with empty hands, she was astonished to
see Claes coming back to their house, triumphant and
lordly, upon the horse of the man in black, who was
going afoot beside him and holding the rein. Claes was
proudly holding in one hand against his thigh a leathern
wallet that seemed well stuffed.

Dismounting, he embraced the man, banged him
merrily, then shaking the bag, he cried out:

"Long live my brother Josse, the good hermit! God
keep him in joy, in fat, in mirth, in health! He is the
Josse of benediction, the Josse of plenty, the Josse of
rich fat soups! The stork did not play us false!" And
he put the bag down upon the table.

Therewith said Soetkin lamentably:
"My man, we shall not eat to-day: the baker has
denied me bread."

124 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Bread?" said Claes, opening the bag and pouring
out a stream of gold on the table, "bread? Lo, here is
bread, butter, meat, wine, beer! Here be hams, marrow
bones, pies of herons, ortolans, fat hens, as for great
lords! Here is beer in hogsheads and wine by the cask!
Mad and mad will be the baker that will deny us bread,
we shall buy no more in his shop."

"But, my man. ... !" said Soetkin all a-daze.

"Now, then, hearken," said Claes, "and be light of
heart. Katheline, instead of wearing out her term of
banishment in the marquisate of Antwerp, went on
foot, under Nele's guidance, as far as Meyborg. There
Nele told my brother Josse that often we live in black
want, in spite of my sore toil. According to what this
good fellow messenger has told me but now" — and
Claes pointed to the horseman in black — "Josse hath
abandoned the Roman religion to adhere to the heresy
of Luther."

The man in black replied:

"Those be the heretics that follow the cult of the
Great Harlot. For the Pope hath betrayed his trust
and is a seller of holy things."

"Ah!" said Soetkin, "speak not so loud, good sir,
you will cause us to be burned all three."

"And so," said Claes, "Josse said to this good fellow
messenger that since he was about to fight among the
troops of Frederick of Saxony, and was taking him fifty
well-found men at arms, he had no need, going into war,
of so much money, to bequeath it in some ill hour to
some rogue of a landsknecht. 'So,' said he, 'take it to
my brother Claes, with my blessing, these seven hun-
dred gold florins carolus: tell him to live in comfort
and think upon his soul's salvation'."

And Lamme Goedzak 125

"Aye," said the horseman, "it is time for it, for
God will render unto man according to his works, and
will entreat each one according as he hath deserved
in his life."

"Good sir," said Claes, "it will not be forbidden me
in the meantime to rejoice at this good tidings; deign
to stay within here, we shall, to do it honour, eat
goodly tripe, carbonadoes without stint, a neat ham
which lately I beheld so plump and appetizing in
the pork butcher's, that it made my teeth come out
a foot long out of my jaws."

"Alas!" said the other, "madmen thus take their
joy the while the eyes of God are upon their ways."

"Come now, messenger," said Claes, "Will you or
will you not eat and drink with us?"

The man replied:

"It will be time for the faithful to give their souls
up to earthly joys when great Babylon is fallen!'

Soetkin and Claes making the sign of the cross, he
would have gone away:

Claes said to him:

"Since it is your pleasure thus to go away without
being made much of, give my brother Josse the kiss
of peace and watch over him in the battle."

"I will do so," said the man.

And he went away, while Soetkin went to bring
wherewithal to feast propitious fortune. The stork that
day had for supper two gudgeons and a cod's head.

The news spread swiftly through Damme that
Claes the poor had become Claes the rich through
the act of his brother Josse, and the dean said that
Katheline had doubtless cast a spell on Josse, since
Claes had received from him a sum of money, a very

126 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

great sum, beyond a doubt, and had not given the
poorest robe to Our Lady.

Claes and Soetkin were happy, Claes working in
the fields or selling his coal, and Soetkin showing
herself a brave housekeeper at home.

But Soetkin, always sad, sought unceasingly with
her eyes for Ulenspiegel along the highway.

LII

That day the Emperor Charles received from Eng-
land a letter in which his son said to him:

SIR AND FATHER:

It displeases me to have to live in this land where the
accursed heretics breed like fleas and caterpillars and locusts.
Fire and sword would not be amiss to lop them from off the
trunk of the life-giving tree our mother Holy Church. As
if this grief were not enough for me, still it must needs be
that they will not look on me as their king, but as their
queen's husband, and having no authority apart from her.
They make game of me, saying in malicious pamphlets, whose
authors and printers none can discover, that the Pope pays
me to trouble and harm the realm with impious hangings and
burnings, and when I would raise some urgent levy from
them, for oftentimes they leave me without money, out of
mere malice, they reply in evil lampoons that I have but to
ask money from Satan whose work I do. The men of the
Parliament make excuses and hunch up their backs in fear
lest I should bite, but they grant nothing.

All the while the walls of London are covered with lam-
poons representing me as a parricide ready to strike down
Your Majesty to have your inheritance.

But you know, my lord and father, that in spite of all my
legitimate ambition and pride, I wish Your Majesty a long
and glorious reign.

And Lamme Goedzak 127

They scatter also throughout the town a drawing all too
cleverly engraved on copper, in which I am seen making cats
play upon a harpsichord with their paws, shut up inside the
instruments, with their tails protruding through round
holes into which they are fastened with iron pins. A man,
who is myself, is burning their tails with a red-hot iron, and
so making them strike on the keys with their paws and
yowl desperately. I am depicted as so ugly that I cannot
even bear to look at myself in it. And they show me laugh-
ing. Now you must know, dear sir and father, if I happened
to take this profane pleasure at any time, I doubtless en-
deavoured to amuse myself by making these cats mew, but
I never laughed. They make it a crime in me, in their rebel's
talk, what they call the newfangledness and cruelty of this
harpsichord, although the beasts have no souls, and
though men and especially all royal personages may use them
even unto death for their diversion. But in this land of
England they are so well mated with beasts that they treat
them better than their servants; stables and kennels here are
palaces, and there are lords even that sleep with their horses
on the same litter.

Furthermore, my noble wife and queen is barren; they
declare by way of brutal insult that I am the reason, and not
she who is also jealous, sullen, and gluttonous of love beyond
degree. Dear sir and father, every day I implore our Lord
God to have me in his grace, hoping for another throne, were
it among the Turks, while awaiting that to which I am called
by the honour of being the son of your most glorious and
greatly victorious Majesty.

(Signed} PHILIP.

To this letter the Emperor made answer:

SIR AND SON:

Your enemies are strong, I do not contest the fact, but en-
deavour to endure with patience the waiting for a more
illustrious crown. I have already announced to divers the
intention I have conceived of withdrawing from the Low
Countries and my other dominions, for I am well aware that

128 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

old and gouty as I now become, I cannot well make head
against Henry of France, second of the name, for Fortune
loveth the young. Think also that as the master of England
you wound by your power our enemy France.

I was foully beaten before Metz, and lost forty thousand
men there. I was forced to flee before him of Saxony. If
God doth not restore me by a touch of his good and divine
will unto my full strength and vigour, I am minded, dear sir
and son, to quit my realms and leave them to you.

Have therefore patience and meanwhile do your duty fully

against the heretics, sparing none of them, men, women, girls,

nor babes, for word has come to me, to my great grief, that

madamethe queen would fainofttimes have shown them grace.

Your affectionate father,

(Signed] CHARLES.

LIII

Having tramped a long time, Ulenspiegel's feet
were bleeding, and in the bishopric of Mayence he
met with a pilgrims' cart that brought him to Rome.

When he came into the city and got down from
his cart, he descried upon the threshold of an inn a
pretty goodwife who smiled, seeing him look at her.

Auguring well from this good humour:

"Hostess," said he, "will you give a sanctuary to
a pilgrim on pilgrimage, for I have come to my time
and must be brought to bed with the remission of
my sins."

"We grant sanctuary to all that pay us."

"I have a hundred ducats in my wallet," said
Ulenspiegel, who had but one, "and I would be pleased
to spend the first one with you in drinking a bottle
of old wine of Rome."

"Wine is not dear in these holy places," answered
she. "Come in and drink for a soldo."

And Lamrne Goedzak 129

They drank together so long and emptied so many
flagons with small talk that the hostess was forced
to bid her servant give the customers their drink,
while she and Ulenspiegel withdrew into a back parlour
all of marble and as cold as winter.

Leaning her head on his shoulder she asked him who
he was. Ulenspiegel replied:

"I am Sire of Geeland, Count of Gavergeeten,
Baron of Tuchtendell, and at Damme, which is my
birthplace, I have five and twenty bonnier s of moon-
shine."

"What land is that?" asked the hostess, drinking
out of Ulenspiegel's tankard.

"It is," said he, "a soil wherein are sown the seeds
of illusion, of wild hopes and airy promises. But
thou wast not born in the moonlight land, sweet
hostess of the amber skin, and eyes shining like pearls.
'Tis the sun's colour the embrowned gold of thy hair;
it was Venus that without jealousy bestowed on thee
thy plump shoulders, thy full breasts, thy round
arms, thy dainty hands. Shall we sup together
to-night?"

"Handsome pilgrim of Flanders," said she, "why
do you come hither?"

"To talk with the Pope," said Ulenspiegel.

"Alas!" said she, joining her hands, "talk with
the Pope! I that am of this land, I have never been
able to do that."

"I shall do it," said Ulenspiegel.

"But," said she, "know you where he goes, what
manner of man he is, what are his habits and his ways
of living?"

"They told me on my way," said Ulenspiegel, that

VOL.1.

130 The Legend oj Ulenspiegel

he has to name Julius the Third, that he is wanton,
gay, and dissolute, a good talker and quick in repartee.
They told me, too, that he had conceived an extraor-
dinary friendship for a little beggar fellow, black,
dirty, and forbidding, who begged for alms with a
monkey, and that on his arriving at the pontifical
throne, he made him cardinal of the Mount, and
that he is ill whenever a day goes by without seeing
him."

"Drink," said she, "and do not speak so loud."

"They told me, too," said Ulenspiegel, "that he
swore like a trooper: Al dispetto di Dio, potta di Dio;
one day when at supper he did not find a cold peacock
he had had kept for himself, saying, 'I, the Vicar of
God, may very well swear over a peacock since my
master lost his temper for an apple!' You see, my
dear, that I know the Pope and what he is."

"Alas!" said she, "but don't speak of it to other
people. And in any case you will never see him."

"I shall speak with him," said Ulenspiegel.

"If you do, I give you a hundred florins."

"They are mine already," said Ulenspiegel.

The next day, although he was leg-weary, he went
about the town and discovered where the Pope would
say mass that day, at St. John Lateran. Ulenspiegel
went thither and stationed himself as near and as
plain to the Pope as he could compass, and every time
the Pope raised the chalice or the host, Ulenspiegel
turned his back upon the altar.

Beside the Pope was a cardinal serving, brown of
visage, cunning and portly, who, with an ape on his
shoulder, gave the people the sacrament with many
wanton gestures. He called the Pope's attention

And Lamme Goedzak 131

to Ulenspiegel, and as soon as the mass was com-
pleted, His Holiness sent four famous soldiers such
as are known in these warlike lands, to seize the
pilgrim.

"What is your belief?" the Pope asked him.

"Most Holy Father," replied Ulenspiegel, "I hold
the same belief as my hostess."

The Pope sent for the goodwife.

"What dost thou believe?" he said to her.

"What your Holiness believes," she answered.

"And I the same," said Ulenspiegel.

The Pope then asked him why he had turned his
back on the Holy Sacrament.

"I felt myself unworthy to look upon it face to
face," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Thou art a pilgrim," said the Pope.

"Yea," said he, "and from Flanders I come to beg
the remission of my sins."

The Pope gave him his blessing, and Ulenspiegel
departed with the hostess, who told him out one
hundred florins. Thus ballasted he left Rome to
return thence to the land of Flanders.

But he must needs pay seven ducats for his pardon
inscribed on parchment.

LIV

In these days there came two Premonstratensian
friars to Damme with indulgences for sale. They
were attired, over their monkish array, in a fine shirt
trimmed with lace.

Posting themselves at the church door when it was
fair weather, and under the porch when it was foul
and rainy, they put up their tariff, in which they

132 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

marked down for six Hards, for a patard, a half livre
of Paris, for seven, for twelve florins carolus, a hundred,
two hundred, four hundred years of indulgence, and
according to the price, demiplenary or full plenary,
and forgiveness for the most heinous crimes, even
that of desiring to violate Madame the Virgin. But
that one cost seventeen florins.

They delivered to buyers who paid them certain
little bits of parchment on which was written the
number of years of indulgence. Above was found
this inscription:

He that would not be

Stewed, roast, or fried

A thousand years in purgatory

Still in hell burning,

Let him buy indulgence,

Grace and compassion,

For a little silver,

God will repay him.

And there came buyers from ten leagues round-
about. One of the good friars often preached to the
people; he had a face well blossomed and carried
his three chins and his paunch with no false modesty.

"Miserable man!" he would say, fixing his eyes
on one or another of his hearers; "miserable man!
lo, there thou art, in hell! The fire burns thee cruelly:
they are boiling thee in the cauldron of oil in which
they cook Astarte's olie koekjes; thou art but a black
pudding on Lucifer's frying pan, a leg of mutton on
Guilguiroth's, the great devil, for thou art first cut
into joints. Look now on this great sinner, who
contemned indulgences; see that dish of fricadelle;

And Lamme Goedzak 133

'tis he, 'tis he, his impious body, his damned body
boiled down to this. And what a sauce! sulphur,
pitch, and tar! And all these poor sinners are thus
eaten only to be reborn continually to anguish. And
it is there that there is verily weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Have pity, God of com-
passion! Aye, there thou art in hell, poor damned
one, suffering all these torments. Should one give a
denier for thee, thou feelest all at once an easement
in thy right hand; should another half denier be given,
there are both thy hands out of the flame. But the
rest of the body? A florin, and here falls the healing
dew of the indulgence. O coolness delicious! And
for ten days, a hundred days, a thousand years, accord-
ing to what is paid : no more roast, no more olie koekje,
nor fricassee! And if it be not for thee, sinner, are
there not yonder in the hidden deeps of the fire poor
souls thy parents, a beloved wife, some dear girl with
whom thou once delightedst to sin?"

And so saying, the monk would give a nudge to the
friar who stood beside him, with a silver basin. And
the friar, lowering his eyes at this signal, would shake
his basin impressively to call the money to it.

"Hast thou not," the monk would continue, "hast
thou not in this dreadful fire a son, a daughter, some
darling babe? They cry, they weep, they call on
thee. Canst thou remain deaf to those lamentable
voices? Thou couldst not; thy heart of ice will melt,
but that will cost thee a carolus. And see: at the
chime of the carolus upon this common metal .
(the other monk still shook his basin) a void is made
within the fire, and the poor soul mounts up to the
lip of some volcano. Lo, there it is in the cool air,

134 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

in the free air! Where are the torments of the fire?
The sea is near at hand, it plunges in, it swims on
back, on front, above the waves and beneath the
waves. Hearken how it crieth out for joy, look how
it wallows in the water! The angels look on it and
rejoice. They await it, but still it hath not enough,
fain would it become a fish. It knoweth not that
there on high are delicious baths full of perfumes
in which float great lumps of sugar candy white and
cold as ice. A shark cometh: the soul dreads him
not. It climbs upon his back, but he feels it not;
it would fain go with him into the depths of the
sea. There it goeth to salute the angels of the waters,
that eat waterzoey in coral kettles and fresh oysters
on platters of mother of pearl. And how it is wel-
comed, feasted, made much of; the angels still call
it from on high. At length, nobly refreshed, and
happy, dost thou see it, how it flies up singing like a
lark up to the highest heaven where God sitteth
throned in glory? There it findeth all its earthly
relatives and friends, save those that having slandered
and missaid the indulgences of our Mother Holy
Church, burn in the abyss of hell. And so for ever,
ever, ever and always, even from age to age, through-
out eternity of agony. But the other soul, that is
close to God, refreshing itself in the delicious baths and
eating the sugar candy. Buy indulgences, my broth-
ers; they are to be had for crusadoes, for gold florins.
Buy, buy, buy! this is the holy shop; there is here for
the poor and for the rich, but unhappily there can
be no credit, my brothers, for to buy and not pay ready
money is a crime in the Lord's eyes."

The brother who was not preaching went on shaking

And Lamme Goedzak 135

his dish. Florins, crusadoes, ducats, patards, sols,
and deniers fell into it thick as hail.

Claes, seeing himself a rich man, paid a florin for
ten thousand years' indulgence. The monks gave him
a piece of parchment in exchange.

Soon, seeing that there was nobody left in Damme
who had not bought indulgence except the very scum
of poverty, they went away together to Heysti

LV

Clad in his pilgrim's garb and duly and well ab-
solved of his sins, Ulenspiegel left Rome, tramping
ever straight on before him, and came to Bamberg,
where the best vegetables in the world are.

He went into an inn where there was a jolly hostess,
who said to him:

"Young master, would you have victual for your
money ? "

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel. "But for what sum does
one eat here?"

The hostess answered:

"You eat at the nobles' table for six florins; at
the citizens' table for four florins, at the house table
for two."

"The most money is the best for me," replied
Ulenspiegel.

So he went and sate down at the nobles' table.
When he was well filled and had washed down his
dinner with Rhine wine, he said to his hostess:

"Goodwife, I have eaten well for my money. Give
me the six florins."

The hostess said to him:

136 The Legend of U lens pie gel

"Are you making game of me? Pay your score."

"Dear baesine" replied Ulenspiegel, "you have
not the countenance of a fraudulent debtor; I see in
it, on the contrary, so great a good faith, so much
loyalty and love of neighbours that you would liefer
pay me eighteen florins than refuse me the six you
owe me. Those lovely eyes! 'tis the sun blazing on
me, making the madness of love spring up higher than
couch grass in a deserted garden."

The hostess answered:

"I have nothing to do with your madness or your
couch grass; pay and be off."

"To be off," said Ulenspiegel, "and never you see
again! Far rather would I die on the spot. Baesine,
gentle baesine, I am little used to eat for six florins,
I, a poor young man wandering by hill and dale; I
am stuffed and full, and presently my tongue will
hang out like a dog's in the sun: be so good as to pay
me, I have well and duly earned the six florins by my
hard jaw work; give me them and I will caress you,
kiss you, embrace you with so great heat of gratitude
that twenty-seven lovers could not all together suffice
for such a task."

"You are talking for money," said she.

"Would you have me eat you for nothing?" said he.

"No," said she, defending herself from him.

"Ah!" he sighed, pursuing her, "your skin is like
cream, your hair like pheasant roasted golden on the
spit, your lips like cherries! Is there any woman more
dainty than you?"

"It becomes you well, nasty ruffian," said she, smiling,
"to come still demanding six florins from me. Be happy
that I have fed you gratis and asked you for nothing."

And Lamme Goedzak 137

"If you only knew," said Ulenspiegel, "how much
space there is still!"

"Go!" said the hostess, "before my husband comes."

"I will be a lenient creditor," replied Ulenspiegei;
"give me just one florin for future thirst."

"Here," said she, "bad boy."

And she gave it to him.

"Will you kindly go away?" said she.

"To go kindly would be to go to you, my dear, but
it is going unkindly to leave your beauteous eyes.
If you would deign to keep me with you I should eat
no more than but a florin every day."

"Must I take a yard stick?" said she.

"Take mine," replied Ulenspiegel.

She laughed, but he must needs be gone.

LVI

Lamme Goedzak, in these days, came once more to
live in Damme, the country of Liege being far from
tranquil on account of heresy. His wife followed him
with a good will, because the Liege people, good
mockers by nature, made game of her husband's easy
meekness.

Lamme often visited Claes, who since he had his in-
heritance, haunted the tavern of the Blauwe Torre and
had chosen out a table there for himself and his boon
companions. At the next table there sat, meanly drink-
ing his pint pot, Josse Grypstuiver, the miserly dean of
the fishmongers, a scurvy fellow, niggard, living on red
herrings, loving money more than his soul's salvation.
Claes had put in his pouch the piece of parchment on
which were marked his ten thousand years of indulgence.

138 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

One night when he was at the Blau'jce Torre in the
company of Lamme Goedzak, Jan van Roosebekke, and
Mathys van Assche, Josse Grypstuiver being present,
Claes made good play with the pot, and Jan Roose-
bekke said to him:

"Tis a sin to drink so much!"

Claes replied:

"You only burn half a day for a quart too much.
And I have ten thousand years of indulgence in my
pouch. Who would like a hundred so as to be able
to drown his belly without fear or favour?"

All cried out :

"\Yhat is your price for them:"

"A quart," replied Claes, "but I will give a hundred
and fifty for a muske conyn."

Certain drinkers paid Claes, one a stoup, one a
piece of ham, and he cut off a little strip of parchment
for each of them. It was not Claes who ate and drank
the price of the indulgence, but Lamme Goedzak,
who ate until he was visibly a-swelling while Claes
came and went through the tavern retailing his wares.

Grypstuiver, turning his sour face towards him :

"Have you a piece for ten days?" said he.

"Xo," said Claes, "it's too hard to cut."

And even-one laughed, and Grypstuiver swallowed
his rage. Then Claes went off to his cottage, followed
by Lamme, walking as if his legs were made of wool.

LVII

Towards the end of her third year of banishment
Katheline came back to her own house at Damme.
And she never ceased to sav in witless fashion: "Fire

And Lamme Goedzak 139

on my head, the soul is knocking, make a hole, it
would fain come out." And she still fled away at the
sight of oxen and of sheep. And she sat on the bench
under the lime trees, behind her cottage, wagging her
head and looking, without knowing them, at the folk
of Damme, who said as they passed by in front of her,
"There is the madwife."

At this time, strolling by highways and byways,
Ulenspiegel saw on the high road an ass harnessed with
leather studded with copper nails, and its head adorned
with tufts and tassels of red wool.

Certain old women stood about the ass all talking
at the same time and saying: "No one can take pos-
session of it, it is the horrible mount of the great wizard
the Baron de Raix, who was burned alive for having

sacrificed eight children to the devil " "Gossips,

he ran away so quickly that they could not catch him.

Satan is in him to protect him " "For while being

wreary, he stayed on his way, the sergeants of the com-
mune came to take him bodily, but he reared and
brayed so terribly that they dared not come near him
"And it was not the braying of an ass but the

roaring voice of a demon " "So they left him to

browse on thistles without putting him on his trial

or burning him alive as a wizard "These

folk have no kind of courage —

In spite of all this fine talk, as soon as the donkey
pricked up his ears or lashed his ribs with his tail,
the women fled shrieking, to come in again chattering
and jabbering, and to do the same thing again at the
least movement of the donkey.

But Ulenspiegel, contemplating them and laughing:

"Ah," said he, "endless curiosity and everlasting

140 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

babble flow like a river from the mouths of gossips
and especially the old ones, for in the young, the
flood is less common because of their amorous em-
ployments."

Considering next the ass:

"This wizard beast," said he, "is nimble and with-
out doubt no sloucher; I can either ride or sell
him."

He went off without a word, to fetch a peck of oats,
made the ass eat them, leaped lightly on his back,
and tightening up the rein, turned to the north, the
east, and the west, and from afar blessed the old women.
These, swooning for terror, knelt down, and that day at
the evening hour in the village it was told how an
angel with a pheasant plumed hat on his head had come,
had blessed them all and taken away the wizard's ass,
by special favour of God.

And Ulenspiegel went off bestriding his ass among
rich fat meadows where the horses leaped in freedom,
where cows and heifers grazed, lying idly in the sun.
And he called him Jef.

The ass stopped and dined merrily on thistles.
Sometimes he shivered with all his skin the while,
and lashed his ribs with his tail to drive off the greedy
horse flies that would fain dine like himself, but on
his flesh.

Ulenspiegel, whose stomach cried hunger, was melan-
choly.

"You would be full happy," said he, "master ass,
dining like this on fine fat thistles, if no one came to
disturb you in your comfort and remind you that you
are mortal, that is to say, born to endure every kind
of hardship."

And Lamme Goedzak 141

"Even like thee," he went on, gripping him with his
legs, "even like thyself He of the Holy Slipper hath his
gadfly, 'tis Master Luther; and his High Majesty King
Charles hath his also, that is Messire Fran£ois first
of the name, the King with the long nose and the still
longer sword. It is then permissible for me, a poor
little fellow wandering like a Jew, to have my gadfly,
too, master donkey. Alas, all my pockets have holes,
and through the holes away go gadding all my lovely
ducats, florins, and daelders, like a legion of mice
scattering to flight before the jaws of a cat. I know not
why money will have naught to do with me, me who
so greatly desire money. Fortune is no woman, what-
ever they say, for she loveth but the scurvy miser loons
that coffer her up, pouch her up, lock her up under
twenty keys, and never allow her to show as much as
the tip of her little golden nose at the window. That
is the gadfly that devours me and stings me, and tickles
me but not to make me laugh. You are not listening
to me, master donkey, and you are thinking of nothing
but your grazing. Ah! belly worshipper, filling thy
belly, thy long ears are deaf to the cry of an empty
stomach. Listen to me, I want you to."

And he lashed him bitterly. The ass began to
bray.

"Let us come away now that you have sung your
song," said Ulenspiegel.

But the donkey would not budge any more than a
stone post, and seemed to have resolved to eat to the
last one every thistle along the way. And there was
no lack of them.

Ulenspiegel, perceiving this, he dismounted, cut a
bunch of thistles, got up on his donkey again, held the

142 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

bunch under his muzzle, and led him by the nose as far
as the territories of the Landgrave of Hesse.

"Master donkey," said he, as they went on their way,
"you run nimbly behind my bunch of thistles, a thin
diet and poor, and leave behind you the fine highway
all thick beset with these dainty plants. Even so do
men, smelling some after the bouquet of glory that
Fortune holds under their noses, others after the nose-
gay of gain, others the nosegay of love. At the end of
the road they perceive like you that they have pursued
that which is but little, and have left behind them that
which is somewhat, that is to say, health, work, rest,
and comfort in their homes."

So conversing with his ass, Ulenspiegel came before
the landgrave's palace.

Two captains of musketeers were playing dice on
the stair.

One of them, red headed and of giant size, caught
sight of Ulenspiegel modestly sitting upon Jef and
watching their play.

"What do you want with us," said he, "hungry
pilgrim-face ? "

"I am exceedingly hungry, in very deed," said
Ulenspiegel, "and am pilgrimaging against my will."

"If you are hungry," rejoined the captain, "eat
with your neck the rope that swings from the nearest
gallows destined for vagabonds."

"Messire captain," replied Ulenspiegel, "if you were
to give me that fine gold cord you wear on your hat,
I should go and hang myself with my teeth to that
fat ham that swings yonder at the cook shop."

"Where do you come from?" asked the captain.

"From Flanders," replied Ulenspiegel.

And Lamme Goedzak 143

"What would you?"

"Show His Highness the Landgrave a painting after
my fashion."

"If you are a painter and out of Flanders," said
the captain, "come within, and I will bring you to
my master."

Being come before the landgrave, Ulenspiegel saluted
him three times and more.

"May Your Highness," said he, "deign to excuse my
impertinence in daring to come to lay at your noble
feet a painting I made for you, wherein I had the honour
to pourtray Madame the Virgin in imperial array."

"This painting," he went on, "may perhaps be
to your liking, and in that case I vaunt myself suffi-
ciently of my skill to hope to raise myself to that fine
chair of crimson velvet wherein, during his life, the
ever to be lamented painter of Your Magnanimity
had place."

The landgrave having contemplated the picture,
which was a beautiful one:

"Thou shah be our painter," said he, "take thy
seat in the chair."

And gaily he kissed him on both cheeks. Ulenspie-
gel sat down.

"Thou art full ragged," said the landgrave, scru-
tinizing him.

Ulenspiegel replied:

"In very truth, Monseigneur, Jef, the which is my
ass, dined upon thistles, but I, for three days, I have
lived only on want and fed only upon the savour of
hope."

"Thou shalt sup presently on better meat," replied
the landgrave, "but where is thy ass?"

144 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Ulenspiegel answered:

"I left him on the Great Marketplace, over against
the palace of Your Goodness; I should be glad indeed
if Jef had shelter and litter and fodder for the night."

The landgrave gave instant command to one of his
pages to treat Ulenspiegel's ass like one of his own.

Soon came the hour of the supper, that was as a revel
and a feast. And the meats gave up a noble savour
and the wines rained down their throats.

Ulenspiegel and the landgrave being both fire red
like live coals, Ulenspiegel became gay, but the land-
grave remained pensive.

"Our painter," said he, suddenly, "thou must paint
my portrait, for it is a great satisfaction to a mortal
prince to bequeath to his descendants the memory of
his countenance."

"Sire Landgrave," said Ulenspiegel, "your pleasure
is my will, but it seems to my poor self that pourtrayed
alone by yourself Your Lordship will have no great joy
in ages to come. You must be accompanied by your
noble wife, Madame the Landgravine, and your ladies
and lords, your most warlike captains and officers, in
the midst of whom Monseigneur and Madame will
shine like two suns surrounded by lanterns."

"True indeed, our painter," replied the landgrave,
" and what should I have to pay thee for this great
work?"

"One hundred florins, in advance or otherwise,"
answered Ulenspiegel.

"Here they are in advance," said the landgrave.
"Kind and good lord," replied Ulenspiegel, "you put
oil in my lamp, it shall burn in your honour."

The next day he asked the landgrave to cause to

And Lamme Goedzak 145

pass before him all those for whom he reserved the
honour of figuring in the portraiture.

Came then the Duke of Lunebourg, the commander
of the lansquenets in the landgrave's service. This
was a big heavy man, carrying with difficulty his
paunch swollen with victuals. He drew dear Ulenspie-
gel and whispered a word in his ear:

"If you do not, in making my portrait, take away
half my fat, I shall have you hanged by my troopers."

The duke passed on.

And then a noble lady, the which had a hump on
her back and a bosom as flat as the blade of an exe-
cutioner's glaive:

"Messire painter," said she, "if you do not give
me two humps for the one that you shall take away,
and do not put them in front, I shall have you
quartered as a poisoner."

The lady passed on.

Then came a young maid of honour, fair, fresh, and
pretty, but who lacked three teeth under her upper
lip.

"Messire painter," she said, "if you do not make
me laugh and show thirty-two teeth, I shall have you
cut to pieces by my lover, who is over there."

And pointing out the captain of musketeers who
had before been playing dice on the palace stairway,
she passed on.

The procession continued; Ulenspiegel remained
alone with the landgrave.

"If thou hast the ill-luck," said the landgrave,
"to err in one feature the pourtraying all these coun-
tenances, I shall have thy head cut off like a chicken's."

"Bereft of my head," thought Ulenspiegel, "quar-
VOL.I L

146 The Legend of U lens pie gel

tered, chopped in pieces, or hanged at least, it will be
much more comfortable to pourtray nothing at all.
I will bethink me for it.'*

"Where," he asked the landgrave, "is the hall that
I am to decorate with all these paintings?"

"Follow me," said the landgrave.

And showing him a great room with spacious walls
all bare and empty:

"This," he said, "is the hall."

"I should greatly like," said Ulenspiegel, "that they
should set great curtains on these walls, so as to assure
my paintings against the insults of flies and against
dust."

"That shall be done," said the landgrave.

The curtains being put in place, Ulenspiegel asked
for three apprentices, as he said, to make them pre-
pare his colours.

For thirty days, Ulenspiegel and the apprentices
did nothing but hold feast and revel, sparing neither
the choice viands nor the old wines. The landgrave
watched over all.

However, on the thirty-first day he came and put
in his nose at the door of the room which Ulenspiegel
had enjoined on him not to enter.

"Well, Thyl, where are thy portraits?"

"Far away," replied Ulenspiegel.

"Could not one see them?"

"Not yet."

The thirty-sixth day, he put his nose in at the door
again.

"Well, Thyl? "he asked.

"Ah! sire Landgrave, they are travelling towards
the end."

And Lamme Goedzak 147

The sixtieth day, the landgrave became angry, and
entering the room:

"Thou art immediately to show me the pictures,"
said he.

"Yea, great lord," replied Ulenspiegel, "but deign
not to draw aside this curtain until you have summoned
hither the lords and captains and ladies of your court."

"I consent to this," said the landgrave.

They all came at his command.

Ulenspiegel stood before the curtain closely drawn.

"Monseigneur Landgrave," said he, "Madame Land-
gravine, and you, Monseigneur de Lunebourg, and you
other beauteous dames and valiant captains, I have
pourtrayed as best I could your pretty or warlike faces
behind this curtain. It will be easy to recognize each
one of you there. You are curious to see yourselves,
it is natural, but pray have patience and permit me to
say a word or two to you. Beauteous ladies and valiant
captains, who are all of noble blood, you can see and
admire my painting; but if among you there is one of
low origin, he will see nothing save the blank wall.
And now deign to open your noble eyes."

Ulenspiegel pulled the curtain back.

"Noble men alone see aught, alone they see aught
there, the noble ladies, so shall men say ere long:
'blind in painting as a base fellow, clear seeing as a
noble gentleman'!"

All opened their eyes to the widest, pretending to see,
mutually pointing themselves out to one another,
showing and recognizing each other, but seeing nothing
in reality but the white wall, which made them grieved.

All at once the fool who was there bounded three
feet into the air and shaking his bells:

148 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Let me be looked on as base," said he, "a base fellow
full of basest baseness, but I will say and cry and
proclaim with trumpets and flourish of trumpets that
I see there a bare wall, a blank wall, a naked wall.
So help me God and all His saints!"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"When fools begin to talk it is time for wise men to
be off."

He was making to leave the palace when the land-
grave staying him:

"Fool full of folly," said he, "that goest about the
world praising things fine and good and mocking at
things stupid with wide mouth, thou that hast dared
before so many noble dames and most high and mighty
lords to make a vulgar mock of pride of blasonry and
lordship, thou wilt be hanged one day for thy over-free
speech."

"If the rope be a golden rope," replied Ulenspiegel,
"it will break with terror to see me coming."

"There," said the landgrave, giving him fifteen
florins, "there is the first piece of it."

"All thanks, Monseigneur," answered Ulenspiegel,
"every inn by the way shall have a strand of it, a strand
all of gold that maketh Croesuses of all these thieving
innkeepers."

And away he went on his ass, his bonnet high, his
plume streaming in the wind, merry and jolly.

LVIII

The leaves were yellowing on the trees and the
autumn wind was beginning to blow. Katheline some-
times had her reason for an hour or two or three. And

And Lamme Goedzak 149

Claes then said that the spirit of God had visited her in
His great compassion. At these moments she had
power by passes and by words to cast a spell upon Nele,
who saw more than a hundred leagues away all that
happened in city places, in the streets, or within the
houses.

On this day then, Katheline, being in her wits, was
eating olie koekjes well washed down with dobbel-cuyt
in company with Claes, Soetkin, and Nele.

Said Claes:

"To-day is the day of the abdication of His Sacred
Majesty the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Nele, my
dear, could you see as far as Brussels in Brabant?"

"I could, if Katheline is willing," answered Nele.

Then Katheline made the girl sit upon a bench, and
by her words and passes, acting like a spell, Nele sank
down all deep in slumber.

Katheline said to her:

"Go into the little house in the Park, which is the
favourite abode of the Emperor Charles the Fifth."

"I am," said Nele, speaking low and as though she
was being stifled, "I am in a little chamber painted
green with oil colours. There there is a man bordering
upon four and fifty years, bald and gray, with a fair
beard on a jutting chin, with an evil look in his gray
eyes, full of cunning, of cruelty, and feigned good
nature. And this man he is called Sacred Majesty.
He is in catarrh and coughs sorely. Beside him is
another, young, with an ugly mask like an ape hydro-
cephalous; that one I saw at Antwerp, it is King Philip.
His Sacred Majesty at this moment is reproaching him
for having slept abroad last night ; doubtless, he saith, to
go and find some vile creature in a filthy den in the low

150 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

quarters of the city. He says his hair stinks of the
tavern, which is no pleasure for a king that hath only
to choose sweet bodies, skins of satin refreshed in baths
of perfumes, and hands of great ladies amorous, which
is far better, saith he, than a wild sow, come hardly
washed from the arms of a drunken trooper. There is,
saith he, never a maiden, wife, or widow who would
resist him, among the most noble and beauteous, that
illumine their loves with perfumed tapers, not by the
greasy glimmer of stinking tallow-dips.

"The king replied that he will obey His Sacred Maj-
esty in all things.

"Then His Sacred Majesty coughs and drinks some
mouthfuls of hypocras.

"You will presently,' says he, addressing Philip, 'see
the States General, prelates, nobles, and burgesses:
Orange the Silent, Egmont the Vain, de Homes the Un-
popular, Brederode the Lion; and also all those of the
Fleece of Gold of whom I make you sovereign. You
will see there a hundred wearers of baubles, who would
all cut their noses off to have the privilege of hanging
them from a gold chain on their breasts, in token of
higher nobility.'

"Then, changing his tone and full of sadness, His
Sacred Majesty saith to King Philip:

"Thou knowest, my son, that I am about to ab-
dicate in thy favour, to give the world a great spec-
tacle and to speak in front of a huge crowd, though
hiccupping and coughing — for all my life I have eaten
over much, my son — and thy heart must be hard in-
deed, if having heard me, thou dost not shed a few
tears.'

"I shall weep, father,' answers King Philip.

And Lamme Goedzak 151

"Then His Sacred Majesty speaks to a valet called
Dubois:

"'Dubois,' says he, 'give me a piece of Madeira
sugar, I have a hiccup. If only it will not seize me when
I shall be speaking to all these people. Will that goose
I had yesterday never be done with! Should I drink
a tankard of Orleans wine? No, it is too harsh! Should
I eat a few anchovies? They are very oily. Dubois,
give me some Romagna wine/

"Dubois gives His Majesty what he asketh, then
puts upon him a gown of crimson velvet, wraps him in
a gold cloak, girds on his sword, puts into his hands the
sceptre and the globe, and the crown upon his head.

"Then His Sacred Majesty leaves the house in the
Park, riding on a low mule and followed by King Philip
and many high personages. In this fashion they go into
a great building that they call a palace, and there they
find in a chamber a tall slender man, richly clad, whom
they call Orange.

"His Sacred Majesty speaks to this man and says
to him: 'Do I look well, cousin William?'

"But the man makes no answer, not a word.

"His Sacred Majesty then says to him, half laughing,
half angry:

"You will be dumb always, then, cousin, even to tell
the truth to old broken-down things ? Ought I to reign
still or to abdicate, Silent One?'

'"Sacred Majesty,' replied the slender man, 'when
winter cometh the most vigorous oaks let their leaves
fall/

"Three of the clock strikes.

'"Silent One,' says he, 'lend me thy shoulder, that I
may lean on it/

152 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"And he enters with him and with his retinue into
a great hall, takes his seat under a canopy and on a
dais covered with silk or crimson carpets. There are
three seats on it: His Sacred Majesty takes the middle
one, more ornate than the others, and surmounted with
an imperial crown; King Philip sits on the second, and
the third is for a woman, who is doubtless a queen. To
the right and to the left, seated upon tapestried benches
and cushioned, are men clad in red and wearing a little
gold sheep on their necks. Behind them are placed
many persons who are doubtless princes and lords. Over
against them and at the foot of the dais are seated, upon
benches that have no cushions, men clad in cloth. I
hear them say that they are thus modestly seated and
clad only because they are themselves paying all their
proper charges. All rose up when His Sacred Majesty
came in, but he soon sate him down and signed to all to
sit down likewise.

"An old man next speaks long about the gout, then
the woman, who seemeth to be a queen, hands His
Sacred Majesty a roll of parchment in which are written
things which His Sacred Majesty reads out, coughing,
and in a voice low and indistinct, and speaking of him-
elf says:

"'I have made many voyages in Spain, in Italy, in
the Low Countries, in England and in Africa, all for
the glory of God, the lustre of my arms, and the welfare
of my peoples.'

"Then having spoken long, he says that he is broken
and weary, and fain to deliver the crown of Spain, the
counties, duchies, marquisates of these lands into his
son's hands.

"Then he weeps, and all weep with him.

And Lamme Goedzak 153

"King Philip now rises, and falling upon his knees:

'"Sacred Majesty,' he says, 'is it for me to accept this
crown at your hands when you are so capable of wearing
it still!'

"Then His Sacred Majesty whispered in his ear to
speak comfortably to the men seated upon the cush-
ioned benches.

"King Philip, turning towards them, says to them in
a harsh tone and without rising:

:"I understand French passing well, but not suffi-
ciently to speak to you in that tongue. Ye will hear
what the Bishop of Arras, Master Grandvelle, shall say
to you on my behalf.'

''Thou sayest ill, my son,' says His Sacred Majesty.

"And indeed the assembly murmurs, seeing the
young king so arrogant and so haughty. The woman,
who is the queen, speaks also to make her eulogy, then
comes the turn of an aged man of learning who, when
he has made an end, receives a sign from the hand of
His Sacred Majesty by way of thanks. These ceremonies
and harangues being over, His Sacred Majesty declares
his subjects released from their oath of fidelity, signs
the acts drawn up to that end, and rising up from his
throne, sets his son therein. And everyone in the hall
weeps. Then they go back to the house in the Park.

"There, being once more in the green chamber, alone
and all doors fast shut, His Sacred Majesty laughs loud
and long, and speaking to King Philip who laughs
not:

"Did you see,' he says, speaking, hiccuping, and
laughing all together, 'how little is needed to move
these good souls? What a deluge of tears! And that
fat Maes who, when he finished his long discourse, wept

154 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

like a calf. You yourself seemed touched, but not
enough. These are the true spectacles the common
folk must have. My son, we men love our mistresses
the more the more they cost us. It is the same with
peoples. The more we make them pay, the more they
love us. In Germany I tolerated the reformed faith
that I punished severely in the Low^Countries. If the
princes of Germany had been catholic, I would have
been Lutheran and confiscated their goods. They
believe in the reality of my zeal for the Roman faith
and regret to see me leave them. There have perished
at my hands, in the Low Countries and for heresy,
fifty thousand of their most hardy men and prettiest
maids. I am departing, they lament. Without count-
ing confiscations, I have made them pay more than
the Indies and Peru: they are heartbroken at losing me.
I have torn up the peace of Cadzand, broken Ghent,
suppressed everything that could come in my way;
liberties, franchises, privileges, everything is at the
discretion of the prince's officers: these good souls
think they are still free because I allow them to shoot
with the cross bow and carry the banners of their guilds
in procession. They felt my hand as master: put in a
cage, they find themselves comfortable there, they sing
in it and weep for me. My son, be to them as I have
been: benign in words, harsh in deeds; lick as long as
there is no need to bite. Swear, swear always to their
liberties, franchises, and privileges, but if there be any
peril to yourself, destroy them all. They are iron if one
touch them with a faltering hand, glass if you brush
them with a strong arm. Smite heresy not because
of its divergence from the Roman religion, but because
in these Low Countries it would destroy our authority;

And Lamme Goedzak 155

those that attack the Pope, who weareth a triple crown,
have speedily done with princes that have but one.
Make it treason, as I did liberty of conscience, entailing
the confiscation of goods, and you will inherit them as
I did all my life, and when you depart, to abdicate or
to die, they will say: — 'Oh! the good prince!' and they
will weep.

"And I hear nothing more," went on Nele, "for His
Sacred Majesty has lain down on a bed and is asleep,
and King Philip, arrogant and proud, looks upon him
with no love."

Having said so much, Nele was awakened by Kathe-
line. And Claes, pensive, looked at the flame on the
hearth lightening up the chimney place.

LIX

Ulenspiegel, leaving the landgrave of Hesse, mounted
his ass and crossing the town square, met certain wrath-
ful countenances of lords and ladies, but he took no
heed of them.

Soon he arrived on the lands of the Duke of Lune-
bourg, and there fell in with a band of Smaedelyke bree-
ders, jolly Flemings from Sluys who laid aside some
money every Saturday so that once a year they could
go for a tour in Germany.

They were going on their way singing, in an open
cart drawn by a stout horse of Vuerne-Ambacht, that
brought them gambolling by the highways and marshy
lands of the duchy of Lunebourg. Among them were
some that played the fife, the rebeck, the viol, and the
bagpipe with a mighty din. Beside the cart there
walked at frequent intervals a dikzak playing on the

156 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

rommel-pot and going afoot in the hope of melting off
some of his great belly.

As they were down to their last florin they saw
Ulenspiegel come up to them, laden with chiming coin,
and went into an inn and paid for his draught. Ulen-
spiegel gladly accepted. Seeing the while the Smaede-
lyke breeders were winking as they looked at him and
smiling while they poured out his wine for him, he had
wind of 'some trick, went outside, and posted himself
at the door to hear their talk. He heard the dikzak
saying of him:

"This is the painter of the landgrave who gave him
more than a thousand florins for a picture. Let us
feast him full with beer and wine, he will pay us back
twofold."

"Amen," said the others.

Ulenspiegel went to fasten his ass all saddled a
thousand paces away at a farmer's, gave two patards
to a girl to take charge of it, came back into the cham-
ber of the inn and sat down at the Smaedelyke breeders'
table, without uttering a word. They poured out wine
for him and paid. Ulenspiegel rattled the landgrave's
florins in his satchel, saying that he had just sold his ass
to a countryman for seventeen silver daelders.

They travelled on, eating and drinking, playing the
fife, the bagpipe, and rommel-poty and picking up by the
way the goodwives they thought comely. In this
way they begot foundling children, and beyond all,
Ulenspiegel, whose gossip later bore a son which she
named Eulenspiegelken, which signifies, in high Ger-
man, little mirror and owl, and that because she did
not understand clearly the meaning of her casual man's
name, and also perhaps in memory of the hour when

And Lamme Goedzak 157

the child was made. And this is the Eulenspiegelken
wrongly said to have been born at Krittingen, in the
land of Saxony.

Drawn by their stout horse they went along a high-
way at the side of which was a village and an inn with
the sign In den ketele: "In the Kettle." Thence issued a
goodly savour of fricassee.

The dikzak who played the rommel-pot went to the
baes and said to him, speaking of Ulenspiegel:

"That is the landgrave's painter; he will pay for
all."

The baes, perusing Ulenspiegel's appearance, which
was excellent, and hearing the chink of florins and
daelders, set upon the table wherewith to eat and
drink; Ulenspiegel did not shrink from it. And ever
and always jingled the crowns in his wallet. Many a
time, too, he had stuck his hand on his hat saying it
covered his chief treasure. The revels having lasted
two days and one night, the Smaedelyke breeders said to
Ulenspiegel:

" Let us be off from here and pay the bill."

Ulenspiegel answered:

"When the rat is in the cheese, doth he ask to leave
it?"

"Nay," said they.

"And when a man eats well and drinks well, does
he seek out the dust of the roads and the water from
springs full of leeches ? "

"Nay, indeed," said they.

"Well, then," said Ulenspiegel, "let us stay here as
long as my florins and daelders serve us as funnels to
pour into our throats the drinks that bring us to laugh-
ter."

158 The Legend of U lens pie gel

And he bade the host bring still more wine and more
sausage.

While they drank and ate, Ulenspiegel said:

' 'Tis I who pay, I am landgrave for the nonce. If my

wallet were empty, what would you do, comrades ? You

might take my soft felt headgear and you might find it

full of carolus, in the crown as well as round the brim."

"Let us feel," cried they all with one accord. And
sighing they felt in it between their fingers large coins
of the size and dimensions of gold carolus. But one
among them handled it so lovingly that Ulenspiegel
took it back, saying:

"Impetuous dairy man, you must learn to await the
milking hour."

"Give me the half of your hat," said the Smaedelyke
breeders.

"Nay," answered Ulenspiegel, "I don't want you to
have a madman's brain, one half in the shade and the
other in the sun."

Then giving his headgear over to the baes:

"You," said he, "do you keep it in any case, for it is
hot. For my part, I am going out to ease me."

He went, and the host took charge of the hat.

Presently he left the inn, went to the peasant's cot-
tage, got up upon his ass, and wTent off full speed along
the road that leads to Embden.

The Smaedelyke breeders, not seeing him come back,
said one to another:

"Has he gone? Who will pay the charges?"

The baes, seized with fear, cut open Ulenspiegel's hat
with a knife. But instead of the carolus, he found noth-
ing in it between the felt and the lining but worthless
copper counters.

And Lamme Goedzak 159

Raging then against the Smaedelyke breeders he said
to them:

"Brothers of roguery, ye shall not stir out of here
save leaving behind all your clothes except only your
shirts."

And they had every man to strip off his clothes to
pay his shot.

In this fashion they went in their shirts over hill and
dale, for they would by no means sell their horse nor
their cart.

And all that beheld them in so pitiable a plight, gave
them freely bread to eat, beer, and sometimes meat;
for everywhere they told the tale how they had been
despoiled by robbers.

And among the lot they had but one pair of breeches.

And thus they came back to Sluys in their shirts,
dancing in their cart and playing the rommel-pot.

LX

Meanwhile Ulenspiegel bestrode the back of Jef
through the lands and the marshes of the Duke of
Lunebourg. The Flemings call this duke Water-
Signorke because it is always damp in his country.

Jef obeyed Ulenspiegel like a dog, drank bruinbier,
danced better than a Hungarian master of arts in
posturing, pretended to be dead and lay down on his
back at the least signal.

Ulenspiegel knew that the Duke of Lunebourg, an-
noyed and angry at Ulenspiegel's making a mock of him
at Darmstadt before the landgrave of Hesse, had for-
bidden him to set foot on his territories on pain of the
halter. Suddenly he saw His Ducal Highness in person,

160 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

and as he knew it was a hasty and violent Highness, he
was seized with fright. Speaking to his ass :

"Jef," said he, "here is Monseigneur of Lunebourg
coming. I feel a sore itch of rope on my neck; but may
it not be the hangman that will scratch me for it. Jef,
I would gladly be scratched, but not hanged. Think
that we are brothers in distress and long ears; think,
too, what a good friend you would lose if you lost me."

And Ulenspiegel wiped his eyes, and Jef began to
bray.

Continuing his discourse:

"We live together in mirth," said Ulenspiegel to him,
"or in moan, according to circumstances; do you re-
member, Jef? . . ." The ass continued to bray, for
he was hungry.

"And you will never be able to forget me," said his
master, "for what friendship is strong but that which
laughs with the same joy and weeps with the same dis-
tress ! Jef, you must get down on your back."

The gentle ass obeyed, and was seen by the duke
with all four hoofs in the air. Ulenspiegel quickly took
seat on his belly. The duke came to him.

"What dost thou here?" said he, "knowest thou not
that in my last edict I forbade thee under pain of the
rope to set thy dusty foot on my territory?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"Gracious lord, have compassion upon me!"

Then showing his ass:

"You know full well," said he, "that by law and by
justice, he is always free that dwelleth between his own
four posts."

The duke answered:

" Be off from out my territories, else thou shalt die."

And Lamme Goedzak 161

"Monseigneur," replied Ulenspiegel, "I should be
off from them so swiftly mounted on a florin or two!"

"Rogue," said the duke, "wilt thou, not satisfied
with thy disobedience, ask money of me to boot?"

"Needs must indeed, Monseigneur, I cannot take
it from you. . . ."

The duke gave him a florin.

Then said Ulenspiegel, speaking to his ass:

"Up, Jef, and salute Monseigneur."

The ass got up and began to bray again. Then both
of them took themselves off.

LXI

Soetkin and Nele were seated at one of the windows
of the cottage and looked into the street.

Soetkin said to Nele:

"Dearest, see you not my boy Ulenspiegel coming?"

"No," said Nele, "we shall never see him again, the
naughty vagabond."

"Nele," said Soetkin, "you must not be angry with
him but sorry for him, for he is away from his home,
poor fellow."

"I know full well," said Nele, "he hath another
house far from here, richer than his own, where some
beauteous dame doubtless gives him lodging."

"That would be good luck indeed for him," said
Soetkin; "mayhap there he feedeth upon ortolans."

"Why do they not give him stones to eat: speedily
would he be here then, the glutton ! " said Nele.

Then Soetkin laughed and said:

"Whence doth it arise then, dearest, all this big

anger?'

VOL.1 M

1 62 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

But Claes, who, all pensive, too, was binding faggots
in a corner.

"Do you not see," said he, "that she is infatuate for
him?" "

"Lo you," said Soetkin, "the crafty cunning thing
that never murmured word of it! Is it so, dearest, that
you long for him?"

"Never believe it," said Nele.

"You will have there," said Claes, "a stout husband
with a big mouth, a hollow belly, and a long tongue,
turning florins into liards and never a half-penny for
his work, always loafing about and measuring the high-
ways with the ell wand of vagabondage."

But Nele replied, all red and cross:

"Why did you not make something different of
him?"

"There," said Soetkin, "now she is weeping; hold
your tongue, husband."

LXII

Ulenspiegel upon a day came to Nuremberg and
gave himself out for a great physician, the conqueror
of sickness, a most illustrious purger, renowned queller
of fevers, celebrated scavenger of plagues, and scourge
invincible of the itch and mange.

There were in the hospital so many sick that they
could not know where to put them. The master hos-
pitaller hearing of Ulenspiegel's coming, came to see
him and inquired if it was true that he could heal all
diseases.

"Except the last sickness," replied Ulenspiegel;
"but promise me two hundred florins for the cure of
all the others, and I will not accept a Hard till all

And Lamme Goedzak 163

your sick confess themselves cured and leave the
hospital."

On the morrow he came to the said hospital with
a confident look and carrying his phiz solemnly and
doctorally. Once within the wards, he took each sick
man separately and said:

"Swear," quoth he, "not to confide to any what I
am about to tell thee in thine ear. What is thy mal-
ady?"

The sick man would tell him, and swear by his al-
mighty God to hold his tongue.

"Know," said Ulenspiegel, "that I mean to reduce
one of you to powder by means of fire, that of this
dust or powder I shall concoct a marvellous mixture
and give it to all the sick to drink. The one that
cannot walk shall be burned. To-morrow I shall come
here and standing in the street with the master hos-
pitaller, I shall summon you all crying, 'Let him that
is not sick take up his duds and come!' '

In the morning, Ulenspiegel came and called out
as he had said. All the sick, the lame, the rheumy,
the coughing, the fever stricken, would fain come out
together. All were in the street, even some that for
ten years had not left their bed.

The master hospitaller asked them if they were cured
and could walk.

"Aye," replied they, imagining that one of them
was burning in the courtyard.

Ulenspiegel then said to the master hospitaller:

"Pay me, since they are all outside, and declare
themselves cured."

The master paid him two hundred florins. And
Ulenspiegel departed.

164 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

But on the second day the master beheld his sick
folk coming back in a worse state than before, save one
who, being cured in the open air, was found drunk and
singing through the streets: "Noel to the great phy-
sician Ulenspiegel!"

LXIII

The two hundred florins having gone their light ways
Ulenspiegel came to Vienne where he hired himself
to a wheelwright who continually scolded his workmen
because they did not blow the bellows of his forge
strongly enough:

"Keep time," he would be crying always, "follow
with the bellows.'"

One day when the baes went into the garden Ulen-
spiegel took down the bellows, carried it off on his
shoulders, and followed his master. The latter being
astonished to see him so strangely burthened, Ulen-
spiegel said to him:

"Baes, you ordered me to follow with the bellows,
where am I to put this one while I go and fetch the
other."

"Dear lad," said the baes, "I did not say that; go
and put the bellows back in its place."

However, he studied how to pay him out for this
trick. Thenceforward he rose every day at midnight,
awoke his men and made them work.

Then men said to him:

"Baes, why do you wake us up in the middle of the
night?"

"'Tis a custom of mine," replied the baest "not to
allow my workmen to stay more than half the night in
a bed for the first seven days."

And Lamme Goedzak 165

The following night he awaked his men at midnight
again. Ulenspiegel, who slept in the garret, took his
bed on his back and thus laden came down into the
forge.

The baes said to him:

"Are you mad? Why do you not leave your bed in
its place?"

"Tis a custom I have," answered Ulenspiegel, "to
spend for the first seven days half the night on top of
my bed and the other half under it."

"Well, for me, it is a second custom I have to throw
into the street my impudent workmen with leave to
pass the first week above the pavement and the second
below it."

"In your cellar, baes, if you please, beside the casks
of bruinbier," replied Ulenspiegel.

LXIV

Having left the wheelwright and gone back to
Flanders, he must hire himself as apprentice to a
shoemaker who liked better to stay in the streets
than to wield the awl in his workshop. Ulenspiegel,
seeing him for the hundredth time ready to go
abroad, asked him how he must cut the leather for
vamps.

"Cut it," replied the baes, "for big feet and average
feet, so that all that lead big cattle and little cattle
may get into them handily."

"So shall it be, baes," answered Ulenspiegel.

When the shoemaker had gone out, Ulenspiegel cut
out vamps only good to make shoes for fillies, asses,
hiefers, sows, and ewes.

1 66 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Coming back to his workshop, the baes, seeing his
leather in pieces:

"What have you done there, good-for-nothing
botcher?" said he.

"What you bade me," Ulenspiegel made answer.

"I bade you," replied the baes, "cut me shoes in
which might be put handily everything that leads
oxen, swine, and sheep, and you make me shoes for
the feet of the beasts."

Ulenspiegel replied:

"Baes, what leads the boar but the sow, the donkey
but the ass, the bull but the heifer, the ram but the
ewe, in the season when all the beasts are in love?"

Then he went away, and must needs remain outside.

LXV

At this time 'twas April, the air had been soft and
sweet, then it froze hard and the sky was gray as on
All Souls' Day. The third year of Ulenspiegel's
banishment had long since run out and Nele awaited
her friend from day to day. "Alas!" said she,
"it will snow on the pear trees, on the flowering
jasmine, on all the poor plants unfolded confidingly
in the genial warmth of an untimely springtide.
Already the little flakes are falling from the sky upon
the roadways. And it snoweth, too, upon my poor
heart.

"Where are the bright rays playing on bright faces,
on the roofs they made still redder than their wont,
on the window panes they caused to flame? Where
are they, warming earth and sky, bird and insect?
Alas! now night and day I am chilled to the bone with

And Lamme Goedzak 167

sadness and my long waiting. Where art thou, Ulen-
spiegel, my dear?"

LXVI

Ulenspiegel, drawing near Renaix in Flanders, was
hungry and thirsty, but he would by no means
complain, and endeavoured to make folk laugh so
they might give him bread. But he laughed not
over well, and they passed him by and gave him
nothing.

It was cold: turn and turn about it snowed, rained,
and hailed on the back of the wanderer. If he passed
through the villages, the water came in his mouth only
to see a dog gnawing a bone in the angle of a wall. Fain
and fain would he have earned a florin, but had no idea
how the florin could fall into his pouch.

Looking up, he saw the pigeons that from the roof of
the dove cote dropped white pieces on the highway,
but they were not florins. He searched on the ground
along the causeways, but florins do not bloom among
the paving stones.

Looking to the right hand he saw a rascal cloud that
moved onward into the sky, like a great watering pot,
but he knew that if aught were to fall from this cloud
it would not be a plump of florins. Looking to the
left hand he saw a great idle horse-chestnut tree, living
and doing nothing: "Ah!" he said to himself, "why
are there no florin trees? They would be splendid
trees, indeed!"

Suddenly the big cloud burst asunder, and the hail-
stones fell thick like pebbles on Ulenspiegel's back.
"Alas," said he, "I feel it sure enough, stones are never
thrown but at wandering dogs." Then starting to

1 68 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

run: "It is not my fault," said he to himself, "if I
have not a palace nor even a tent to shelter my poor
thin body. Ah! the cruel hailstones: they are hard as
cannon shot. No, it is not my fault if I trail my
wretched tatters about the world, it is only that such
was my good pleasure. Why am I not emperor?
These hailstones would fain force themselves into my
ears like ill words." And he was still running: —
"Poor nose," he added, "you will soon be pierced
through and through like fretwork, and mayst serve
as a pepperpot at the feasts of the great folk of this
world on whom it never hails." Then wiping his
cheeks: — "These," said he, "would do well for ladles
for cooks that are too hot at their ovens. Ah! far-off
memory of the sauces of long ago. I am hungry.
Empty belly, complain not; sad entrails, grumble
no more. Where dost thou hide, propitious fortune?
take me to the place where the pasture is."

While he talked thus with himself, the sky cleared
and grew bright with a strong sun, the hail ceased, and
Ulenspiegel said: "Good morrow, sun, my one friend,
that comest to dry me!"

But he still kept on running, being cold. Suddenly
from afar he saw coming along the road a black-and-
white dog running straight before him, tongue hanging
out and the eyes bolting from his head.

"This brute," said Ulenspiegel, "has the madness
in his belly!" He hastily picked up a big stone
and climbed upon a tree; as he reached the first bough,
the dog passed and Ulenspiegel launched the stone
upon his skull. The dog stopped, and wretchedly
and stiffly tried to get up the tree and bite Ulenspiegel,
but he could not, and fell back to die.

And Lamme Goedzak 169

Ulenspiegel was nowise glad at this, and still less
when, coming down from the tree, he perceived that
the dog's mouth was not dry and parched as is usual
when these animals are smitten with the hydrophobia.
Then studying his skin, he saw it was fine and good
to sell, stripped him of it, washed it, hung it on his
staff, let it dry a little in the sun, and then put it
away in his satchel.

Hunger and thirst tormented him more and more,
and he went into many farmhouses, not daring to
offer his skin for sale, for fear that it might have be-
longed to one of the farmers' dogs. He asked for
bread, and was refused it. Night came on. His
limbs were weary, he went into a little inn. There
he beheld an ancient baesine caressing a wheezy old
dog whose skin was like a dead man's.

" Whence comest thou, traveller?" asked the aged
baesine.

Ulenspiegel made answer:

"I come from Rome, where I healed the Pope's dog
of a sorry rheum that grieved him sore."

"Then thou hast seen the Pope?" said she to him,
drawing him a glass of beer.

"Alas!" said Ulenspiegel, emptying the glass, "I
have but been permitted to kiss his holy foot and his
holy slipper."

All this while the baesine's old dog was coughing,
but without spitting.

"When didst thou do this?" asked the old woman.

"The month before the last," answered Ulenspiegel,
"I arrived, being looked for, and knocked at the
door. 'Who is there?' asked the chamberlain arch-
cardinal, arch-privy, arch-extraordinary to His Most

The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Holy Holiness.' ' 'Tis I,' I answered, 'Monseigneur
Cardinal, come from Flanders expressly to kiss the
Pope's foot and heal his dog of his rheum.' 'Ah!
'tis thou, Ulenspiegel?' said the Pope, speaking from
the other side of a little door. 'I would rejoice to see
thee, but that is a thing for the moment impossible.
I am forbidden by the Holy Decretals to display my
face to strangers when the holy razor is being passed
over it.' 'Alas!' said I, 'I am an unfortunate man,
I that am come from a land so far to kiss Your Holiness
his foot and cure his dog of the rheum. Must I indeed
return without being satisfied? 'Nay,' said the Holy
Father; and then I heard him call. 'Arch-chamber-
lain, roll my chair as far as the door, and open the
little wicket at the foot of the door.' The which
was done. And I beheld thrust through the wicket
a foot shod with a golden slipper, and I heard a voice,
speaking like a peal of thunder, saying: 'This is the
redoubtable foot of the Prince of Princes, King of Kings,
Emperor of Emperors. Kiss it, Christian man, kiss
the holy slipper.' And I kissed the holy slipper, and
my nose was sweetly filled with the celestial perfume
that was exhaled from that foot. Then the wicket
was shut again, and the same formidable voice bade
me to wait. The wicket opened once more, and from
it there issued, with all due respect, an animal bereft
of its hair, blear-eyed, coughing, swollen like a wine
skin and forced to walk with its legs straddling by
reason of the hugeness of its belly.

"The Holy Father deigned to address me again:
'Ulenspiegel,' said he, 'thou dost look upon my dog;
he was seized with a rheum and other maladies through
gnawing the bones of heretics that had been broken

And Lamme Goedzak 171

for them. Cure him, my son; thou wilt have much
good thereby."'

"Drink," said the old woman.

"Pour out," answered Ulenspiegel. Continuing his
tale: "I purged the dog," said he, "by the aid of a
wonder-working draught concocted by myself. He
made water through this for three days and three
nights without ceasing, and was cured."

"Jesus God en Maria!" said the old woman; "let
me kiss thee, glorious pilgrim, who hast seen the
Pope and mayst also cure my dog."

But Ulenspiegel, recking little of the old woman's
kisses, said to her: "Those who have touched with
their lips the holy slipper may not within a space of
two years receive the kisses of any woman. First
give me for supper some goodly carbonadoes, a black
pudding or so, and a sufficiency of beer, and I shall
make your dog's voice so clear that he will be able to
chant the aves in e la in the rood-loft of the great
church."

"May it be true what thou sayest," whined the
old woman, "and I shall give thee a florin."

"I shall accomplish it," said Ulenspiegel, "but only
after supper."

She served him all he had asked for. He ate and
drank his fill, and he would even have embraced the
old woman for gratitude of his jaw, had it not been
for what he had said to her.

While he was eating, the old dog put his paws on
his knee to have a bone. Ulenspiegel gave him several;
then he said to his hostess:

"If a man had eaten in your inn and not paid, what
would vou dor'

172 The Legend of U lens -pie gel

"I would have his best garment off that robber,"
answered the old woman.

"'Tis well," replied Ulenspiegel; then he took the
dog under his arm and went into the stable. There
he shut him up along with a bone, took the dead
dog's skin out of his satchel, and coming back to the
old woman, he asked her if she had said she would
have his best garment off the man who would refuse
to pay for his meal.

"Well, then, your dog dined with me and did not
pay: so I have, following your own rede, taken his
best and his only coat."

And he showed her the skin of the dead dog.

"Ah!" said the old woman, weeping, "it is cruel
of thee, master doctor. Poor old dog! he was my
child to me, a poor widow. Why didst thou take from
me the only friend I had in the world? I have no
more now to do but to die."

"I will bring him to life again," said Ulenspiegel.

"Bring him to life!" said she. "And he will fawn
on me again, and he will look at me again, and he
will lick me again, and he will wag his poor old stump
of a tail again when he looks at me! Do this, master
doctor, and thou shalt have dined here gratis, a most
costly dinner, and I shall give thee a florin still over
and above the bargain."

"I will bring him to life again," said Ulenspiegel;
"but I must have hot water, syrup to glue the seams
together, a needle and thread and sauce from the
carbonadoes; and I would be alone during the oper-
ation."

The old woman gave him what he asked for; he took
up the skin of the dead dog and went off to the stable.

And Lamme Goedzak 173

There he smeared the old dog's muzzle with sauce,
and the brute submitted to it with delight; he drew
a great stripe of syrup under his belly, put syrup on
his paws and sauce on his tail.

Then crying out loudly three times, he said: " Staet
op! staet op! ik't bevel, vuilen hond!"

And then lightly putting the dead dog's skin in
his satchel he fetched the living dog a great kick and
so pitched him into the inn chamber.

The old woman, seeing her dog alive and licking
himself, was eager to embrace him; but Ulenspiegel
did not permit this.

"You may not," said he, "caress this dog until he
has washed off with his tongue all the syrup with
which he is anointed; only then will the seams in
the skin be closed up. Count out to me now my
ten florins."

"I said one," answered the old woman.

"One for the operation, nine for the resurrection,"
replied Ulenspiegel.

She counted them out to him. Ulenspiegel went
off, flinging into the inn chamber the skin of the dead
dog and saying:

"There, woman, keep his old skin: it will serve you
to patch up the new one when it will have holes in it."

LXVII

On that Sunday at Bruges was held the procession of
the Blessed Blood. Claes said to his wife and to Nele
to go to see it and that mayhap they might find Ulen-
spiegel in the town. As for himself, said he, he would
keep the cottage if the pilgrim should perchance re-
turn thither.

174 The Legend of V lens pie gel

The two women went off together; Claes, remaining
at Damme, sate on the doorstep and found the town
very empty and deserted. He heard nothing except
the crystalline chime of some village bell, while from
Bruges there came to him by fits and starts the music
of the carillons and a great din of falconets and fire-
works let off in honour of the Blessed Blood.

Claes, looking pensively for Ulenspiegel along the
roads, saw nothing, only the sky pure and blue and
cloudless, a few dogs lying tongue out in the sun,
bold sparrows bathing and twittering in the dust,
a cat spying after them, and the sunlight entering
every house like a friend and making the brass kettles
and pewter tankards on every dresser glisten and
shine.

But Claes was downcast amid all this glee, and
looking for his son he sought to see him behind the
gray mist along the meadows, to hear him in the glad
rustling of the leaves and the gay concert of the birds
in the trees. Suddenly he saw on the road from
Maldeghem a man of great stature, and knew it was
not Ulenspiegel. He saw him pause at the edge of a
field of carrots and eat eagerly.

"There's a man mightily an-hungered," said Claes.

Having lost sight of him for a moment, he saw him
reappear at the corner of the street of the Heron, and
he recognized the messenger from Josse who had
brought him the seven hundred gold carolus. He went
to him in the highway and said:

"Come to my house."

The man replied:

"Blessed are they that are kind to the wandering
travelling man."

And Lamme Goedzak 175

On the outer sill of the cottage window there was
crumbled bread that Soetkin kept for the birds of the
neighbourhood. Here they came in the winter to
find their food. The man caught up these crumbs
and ate them.

"You are hungry and thirsty," said Claes.

The man replied:

"Since I was stripped by robbers a week past, I have
lived only on carrots from the fields and roots in the
woods."

"It is then," said Claes, "time to indulge in feast-
ing. And here," said he, opening the cupboard,
"here is a full bowlful of peas, eggs, black puddings,
hams, sausage of Ghent, waterzoey: hotchpotch of
fish. Below, in the cellar, sleeps Louvain wine, made
in the manner of the wines of Burgundy, red and clear
as a ruby; it asks but the awakening of glasses. Come,
now, let us put a faggot on the fire. Do you hear the
black puddings sizzling on the grid? 'Tis the song
of good feeding."

Claes, turning them over, said to the man:

"Have you not seen my boy Ulenspiegel?"

"Nay," he answered.

"Do you bring me any tidings of my brother Josse?"
said Claes, putting upon the table grilled puddings,
an omelette of fat ham, cheese, and great tankards,
and red clear wine of Louvain sparkling in the flasks.

The man replied:

"Thy brother Josse died upon the rack at Sippen-
aken, near Aix. And that was for having borne arms,
being a heretic, against the Emperor."

Claes was as one beside himself, and said, trembling
in every limb, for his wrath was extreme:

176 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Evil murderers! Josse! my poor brother!"

The man said then in no gentle tone:

"Our joys and our woes are not of this world."

And he began to eat. Then he said:

"I gave thy brother help in his prison, passing
myself off for a countryman from Nieswiller, a relation
of his. I have come hither because he said to me:
'If thou dost not die for the faith as I do, go to my
brother Claes; enjoin upon him to live in the Lord's
peace, doing the works of mercy, rearing his son in se-
cret in the law of Christ. The money I gave him was
taken from the poor and ignorant people; let him use it
to bring Thyl up in the knowledge of God and the
word."

Having said this, the messenger gave Claes the
kiss of peace.

And Claes, lamenting:

"Died on the rack," said he, "my poor brother!"

And he could not recover himself out of his great
sorrow. All the same, as he saw that the man was
thirsty and held out his glass, he poured wine for him,
but he ate and drank joylessly.

Soetkin and Nele were away during seven days; dur-
ing this time the messenger from Josse lived under
Claes's roof.

Every night they heard Katheline crying terribly
in the cottage:

"The fire, the fire! Make a hole: the soul would
fain escape!"

And Claes would go to her, and calm her with
soothing speech, then come back into his own
house.

At the end of seven days the man departed and

And Lamme Goedzak 177

would accept no more from Claes but two carolus to
feed and shelter him upon his way.

LXVIII

Nele and Soetkin being come back from Bruges,
Claes, in his kitchen, seated on the floor after the
fashion of tailors, was putting buttons on an old pair of
breeches. Nele was close by him tarring on against
the stork Titus Bibulus Schnouffius who, dashing at the
bird and retreating by turns, was yelping in the shrillest
voice. The stork standing on one foot, looking at him
gravely and pensively, withdrew her long neck into the
feathers on her breast. Titus Bibulus Schnouffius,
seeing her so pacific, yelped more and more terribly.
But all of a sudden the bird, tired and sick of this
music, lashed out her bill like an arrow on the back of
the dog, who fled yelling:

"Help, help!"

Claes laughed, Nele, too, and Soetkin never ceased
looking into the street, seeking if she could not see
Ulenspiegel coming.

Suddenly she said:

"Here is the provost and four constables. It can-
not surely be us they want. There are two of them
turning behind the cottage."

Claes lifted his nose from his task.

"And two that are stopping in front," went on Soet-
kin.

Claes got up.

"Who are they going to arrest in this street?" said
she. "Jesus God! my husband, they are coming in
here." '

VOL.1. N

178 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Claes leaped from the kitchen into the garden,
followed by Nele.

He said to her:

"Save the carolus, they are behind the chimney-back."

Nele understood, then seeing that he was making
through the hedge, that the constables seized him by
the collar, that he was righting to get loose from them,
she cried and wept:

"He is innocent! he is innocent! do not hurt Claes,
my father! Ulenspiegel, where art thou? Thou wouldst
kill both of them!"

And she threw herself upon one of the constables and
tore his face with her nails. Then crying out "They
will kill him!" she fell down on the sward of the garden
and rolled about on it, distraught.

Katheline had come at the noise, and standing
straight and motionless, was contemplating the sight,
saying as she shook her head from side to side: "The
fire ! the fire ! Make a hole ! the soul would fain escape ! "

Soetkin saw nothing, and speaking to the constables
that had come into the cottage:

"Sirs, whom seek ye in our poor dwelling? If it is
my son, he is far away. Are your legs long ones?"

Saying so, she was full of mirth.

At this moment Nele, crying out for help, Soetkin
ran into the garden, saw her husband seized by the
collar and struggling on the highway close to the hedge.

"Strike!" she said. "Kill! Where art thou, Ulen-
spiegel?"

And she would have gone to help her husband, but
one of the constables seized her round the body, not
without peril.

Claes struggled and struck so hard that he might well

And Lamme Goedzak 179

have escaped, if the two constables to whom Soetkin
had spoken had not come to the help of the two that
were holding him.

They brought him with both his hands tied into the
kitchen where Soetkin and Nele were weeping and
sobbing.

"Messire provost," said Soetkin, "what hath my
poor man done then, that you should bind him thus
with ropes?"

"Heretic," said one of the constables.

"Heretic?" returned Soetkin, "thou a heretic, thou?
These devils have lied."

Claes answered:

"I place myself in God's keeping."

He went out; Nele and Soetkin followed him weeping
and believing that they also were to be brought before
the judge. Men and women came to them; when they
knew that Claes was going thus bound because he
was suspect of heresy, they were so sore afraid that they
went back into their homes in haste, and shut all the
doors behind them. Only a few girls dared go to Claes
and say to him:

"Whither goest thou thus bound, coal man?"

"To the grace of God, my girls," he replied.

They brought him to the prison of the commune;
Soetkin and Nele sat down upon the threshold.
Towards evening, Soetkin bade Nele leave her and go
to see if Ulenspiegel was not coming back.

LXIX

Soon the news ran abroad through the villages round
about that a man had been cast into prison for heresy

180 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

and that the inquisitor Titelman, the dean of Renaix,
nicknamed the Inquisitor Pitiless, would conduct the
interrogatories. Ulenspiegel was then living at Kool-
kerke, in the most private favours of a pretty farmer,
an amiable widow that denied him nothing that was
hers. There he was very well off, spoiled and caressed
until the day when a treacherous rival, the sheriff of
the commune, lay in wait for him one morning as he
came out of the tavern and would fain have rubbed
him down with an oaken towel. But Ulenspiegel,
to cool his anger, cast him in a pond whence the sheriff
crept out as best he could, green as a toad and steeped
full as a sponge.

Ulenspiegel for this high feat, must leave Koolkerke
and set off with all speed towards Damme, fearing
the sheriff's vengeance.

The evening was falling cool, Ulenspiegel ran swiftly;
fain would he have been at home already, in his mind's
eye he saw Nele sewing, Soetkin preparing supper,
Claes binding faggots, Schnouffius gnawing on a bone
and the stork knocking with her bill on the house-
wife's front to have some scraps of food.

A pedlar afoot said to him as he passed:

"Whither away in such hurry?"

"To Damme, to my own home," replied Ulenspiegel.

The pedlar answered:

"The town is not safe now by reason of the folk of
the reformed faith that are being arrested there."

And he went on his way.

Arrived before the inn of the Roode-Schildt, Ulenspie-
gel went in to drink a glass of dobbel-cuyt. The baes
said to him:

"Are not you the son of Claes?"

And Lamme Goedzak 181

"I am," answered Ulenspiegel.

"Make haste, then," said the baes, "for the ill hour
has struck for your father."

Ulenspiegel asked what he meant.

The baes replied that he would know all too soon.

And Ulenspiegel continued to run.

As he was at the entrance to Damme, the dogs that
were on the doorsteps jumped out at his legs yelping
and barking. The goodwives came out at the noise
and said to him, all talking at once:

"Whence come you?" "Have you news of your
father?" "Where is your mother?" "Is she with
him in prison, too?" "Alas! if only they do not burn
him!"

Ulenspiegel ran the harder.

He met Nele, who said to him:

"Thyl, do not go to your house: the town governors
have put a guard in it on behalf of His Majesty."

Ulenspiegel stopped.

"Nele," said he, "is it true that my father Claes
is in prison?"

"Yea," said Nele, "and Soetkin weeps on the thresh-
old."

Then the heart of the prodigal son was swollen with
anguish and he said to Nele:

"I am going to see them."

"That is not what you should do," said she, "but
you should obey Claes instead, who said to me before
he was taken: 'save the carolus, they are behind the
chimney-back.' They are what you must save first
and foremost, for it is the inheritance of Soetkin, the
poor woman."

Ulenspiegel, listening no whit, ran to the gaol.

1 82 The Legend of U lens pie gel

There he saw Soetkin seated on the threshold; she em-
braced him with tears, and they wept together.

The people assembling, because of these two, in a
crowd in front of the gaol, the constables came and
told Ulenspiegel and Soetkin that they were to be off
out of that and at the speediest possible.

Mother and son went away to Nele's cottage, next
door to their own home, before which they saw one
of the lansquenet troopers summoned from Bruges
through fear of the troubles that might arise during
the trial and during the execution. For the folk of
Damme loved Claes greatly.

The trooper was sitting on the pavement, before the
door, busy sucking the last drop of brandy out of a
flask. Finding nothing more in it, he flung it some
paces away, and drawing his dagger, he amused him-
self in digging up the paving stones.

Soetkin, all tears, entered Katheline's house.

And Katheline shaking her head: "The fire! Make
a hole, the soul would fain escape," said she.

LXX

The bell that is called Borgstorm — the storm of
the burg — having summoned the judges to the tribunal,
they met in the Fierschare, at the stroke of four, about
the linden tree of judgment.

Claes was brought before them and saw seated be-
neath the canopy the bailiff of Damme, and beside
him and opposite him the mayor, the aldermen, and
the clerk.

The people flocked up at the sound of the bell in
great multitude. Many said:

And Lamme Goedzak 183

"The judges are not there to do the works of justice,
but of imperial serfdom."

The clerk announced that the tribunal having first
met in the Fierschare, around the linden tree, had de-
cided that, considering the denunciations and testi-
monies before it, there had been good ground for seizing
the body of Claes, coal vendor, native of Damme,
husband of Soetkin, the daughter of Joostens. They
would now, he added, proceed to the hearing of the
witnesses.

Hans Barbier, a neighbour of Claes, was the first
heard. Having taken the oath, he said: "Upon my
soul's salvation, I affirm and asseverate that Claes,
present before this court, has been known to me for
almost seventeen years, that he has always lived hon-
estly and decently, and according to the laws and rules
of our holy mother the Church, has never spoken
opprobriously of her, nor to my knowledge harboured
any heretic, nor hidden Luther's book, nor spoken of the
said book, nor done anything that could bring him into
suspicion of having transgressed the laws and regu-
lations of the empire. So help me God and all His
saints."

Jan Van Roosebekke was next heard, and said "that
during the absence of Soetkin, Claes's wife, he had often
thought he heard in the accused man's house the voices
of two men, and that often at night, after the curfew,
he had seen in a small chamber beneath the roof a
light, and two men, one of them was Claes, conversing
together. As for saying whether the other man was
heretic or no, he could not, having only seen him at a
distance. As for what concerns Claes," he added,
"I will say, speaking in all truth, that since I have

184 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

known him, he always kept his Easter regularly, com-
municated on the principal feast days, went to mass
every Sunday, except that of the Blessed Blood and
those following. And I know nothing further but this.
So help me God and all His saints."

Questioned if he had not seen Claes in the tavern of
the Blauwe Torre selling indulgences and mocking at
purgatory, Jan Van Roosebekke replied that in fact
Claes had sold indulgences, but without contempt or
mockery, and that he, Jan Van Roosebekke, had bought
even as also was fain to do Josse Grypstuiver, the dean
of the fishmongers, who was there present among the
crowd.

Thereafter the bailiff said he would proclaim the
actions and conduct for the which Claes was brought
before the court of the Fierschare.

"The informer," said he, "having, as it happened,
remained at Damme, so as not to go to Bruges to spend
his money in riot and revelry, as is too often done at
these holy times, was soberly taking the air on his own
doorstep. Being there he saw a man walking in the
street of the Heron. Claes, perceiving this man, went
to him and saluted him. The man was arrayed in black
cloth. He went into Claes's house, and the door of
the cottage was left ajar. Curious to know what this
man might be, the informer went into the porch, heard
Claes speaking in the kitchen with the stranger, of
a certain Josse, his brother, who having been taken
prisoner among the reformed troops, had been for
this put to death on the rack not far from Aix. The
stranger said to Claes that the money he had received
from his brother being money gained through the ignor-
ance of poor folk, he was to employ it in bringing up

And Lamme Goedzak 185

his son in the reformed religion. He had enjoined
Claes also to leave the bosom of our Mother Holy
Church, and uttered other impious words to which
Claes made answer only with these words: 'Cruel
murderers! my poor brother!' And the accused thus
blasphemed against our Holy Father the Pope and his
Royal Majesty, accusing them of cruelty because they
most justly punished heresy as a crime, being treason
divine and human. When the man had made an end
of eating, the informer heard Claes cry aloud: 'Poor
Josse, may God have thee in His glory, they were cruel
to thee!' Thus he even accused God of impiety, deem-
ing that He may receive heretics into His heaven.
And Claes ceased not to say 'My poor brother!' The
stranger, then entering into frenzy like a preacher in
his preaching, cried: 'She shall fall, great Babylon
the Romish whore, and she shall become the habitation
of demons and the haunt of every obscene bird!'
Claes said: 'Cruel murderers! My poor brother!'
The stranger, continuing his discourse, said: 'For
the angel will take up that stone which is as great as a
millstone. And it shall be cast into the sea, and he will
say: 'Thus great Babylon shall be cast out, and she
shall no more be found.' 'Messire,' said Claes,
'your mouth is filled with anger, but tell me when shall
come the reign when they that are meek and lowly of
heart shall be able to live in peace upon the earth?'
'Never,' replied the stranger, 'so long as Antichrist,
which is the Pope and the enemy of truth, reigneth.'
'Ah,' said Claes, 'you speak of our Holy Father without
respect. Assuredly he knoweth naught of the cruel
torments with which the poor reformers are punished.'
The stranger made answer: 'He is not ignorant of

1 86 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

these, for it is he that issueth the edicts, hath them en-
forced by the Emperor, now by the king, who hath
the profit of confiscations, inherits from the dead, and
readily brings suit for heresy against the rich.' Claes
replied: 'These things are told in the country of
Flanders, I must needs believe them; man's flesh is
weak, even when it is royal flesh. My poor Josse!'
And Claes by this signified that it was through base
desire of lucre that His Majesty punished heresiarchs.
The stranger, wishing to harangue further, Claes re-
plied: 'Be so good, messire, as to hold no more such
discourses with me, for if they were overheard, they
would stir up some grievous suit against me.'

"Claes arose to go to the cellar and came up thence
with a jug of beer. ' I will shut the door,' said he then,
and the informer heard no more, for he must needs
lightly leave the house. The door that had been shut
was nevertheless opened again at nightfall. The
stranger came out, but went back speedily and knocked
at it saying: 'Claes, I am cold, I have nowhere to lodge:
give me shelter, no one has seen me come in, the town
is deserted and empty.' Claes received him in his
house, lighted a lantern, and was seen preceding the
heretic, mounting the stairs and bringing the stranger
underneath the roof to a little chamber whose window
looked towards the country.

"Who, then," cried Claes, "who can have recounted
all if not thou, vile fishmonger, whom I saw on that
Sunday upon thy threshold, stiff as a post, hypocriti-
cally watching the swallows flying through the air?"

And with his finger he pointed to Josse Grypstuiver,
the dean of the fishmongers, who showed his ugly
face amid the crowd of the people.

And Lamme Goedzak 187

The fishmonger smiled cruelly, seeing Claes betray
himself in this fashion. All the people, men, women,
and girls, said one to the other:

"The poor fdlow, his words will past doubt cause
his death."

But the clerk continued his announcement:

"The heretic and Claes," said he, "conversed to-
gether for long that night, and also during other nights,
during which the stranger could be seen making many
gestures of threatening or blessing, and lifting his arms
to heaven as the manner is of his fellows in heresy.
Claes seemed to approve of his words.

"Certes, during these days, evenings and nights,
they talked opprobriously of the mass, of confession,
of indulgences, and of His Royal Majesty. . . ."

"No m«n hath heard it," said Claes, "and I cannot
be accused thus without proofs!"

The clerk continued:

"Another thing was heard. When the stranger
came out from thy house, on the seventh day at the
tenth hour, the night being fallen already, thou didst
walk in the way with him as far as close to the boundary
of the field of Katheline. There he asked what thou
hadst done with the wicked idols" — and at that the
bailiff crossed himself — "of Madame Virgin, Master
Saint Nicholas, and Master Saint Martin. Thou
didst answer that thou hadst broken them to pieces
and cast them into the well. And they were in fact
found in thy well last night, and the fragments are
in the torture-chamber."

At this word Claes appeared overwhelmed. The
bailiff asked him if he had nothing to say in answer:
Claes made a sign with his head to say no.

1 88 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

The bailiff asked him if he did not wish to retract
the evil thought that had made him break up the images
and the impious error that by reason whereof he had
uttered words opprobrious to His Divine Majesty and
His Royal Majesty.

Claes answered that his body was His Royal Maj-
esty's but that his conscience was Christ's, whose law
he meant to follow. The bailiff asked him if this law
was that of our Mother Holy Church. Claes made
answer:

"It is contained in the holy Gospel."

Called upon to answer the question whether the
Pope is the representative of God upon earth:

"No," said he.

Asked if he believed it was forbidden to worship the
images of Madame the Virgin and Messieurs the Saints,
he replied that it was idolatry. Questioned on the
point as to whether auricular confession be a good and
salutary thing, he replied:

"Christ said: 'Confess yourselves one to another'."

He was valiant and stout in his answers, though he
seemed sorely troubled and affrighted at the bottom
of his heart.

Eight o'clock having struck, and the night falling,
the members of the court withdrew, deferring till the
morrow their final judgment.

LXXI

In Katheline's cottage Soetkin wept distraught with
anguish. And she said over and over again:
"My husband! my poor husband!"
Ulenspiegel and Nele embraced her with utmost

And Lamme Goedzak 189

tenderness. Then taking them into her arms she wept
in silence. And then she signed to them to leave her
alone. Nele said to Ulenspiegel:

"Let us leave her there, it is her own wish: let us
save the carolus."

They went away together; Katheline kept moving
round Soetkin, saying:

"Make a hole: the soul would fain escape!"

And Soetkin, with fixed eyes, looked at her without
seeing her.

The cottages of Claes and Katheline touched, that
of Claes set back with a little garden in front, Kathe-
line's had a patch of ground planted with beans giving
upon the street. This patch was surrounded with a
green hedge in which Ulenspiegel to get to Nele's
and Nele to get to Ulenspiegel's, had made a big hole
in their childish days.

Ulenspiegel and Nele came into this garden patch,
and from there saw the trooper who with head wagging
spat into the air, but the spittle fell back on his doub-
let. A wicker flask lay by his side:

"Nele," said Ulenspiegel, in a whisper, "this drunken
trooper has not drunk out his thirst; he must drink more
still. We shall then be his master. Let us take his
flask."

At the sound of their voices, the lansquenet turned
his heavy head in their direction, hunted for his flask,
and not finding it, he went on spitting into the air and
tried to see his spittle falling back in the moonlight.

"He is full of brandy to the teeth," said Ulenspiegel;
"do you hear how he can hardly spit?"

However, the trooper, having spit and stared in the
air a long while, put out his arm again to get his hand

190 The Legend of U lens pie gel

on the flask. He found it, put his mouth to its neck,
threw his head back, turned the flagon upside down,
tapped on it to make it give up all its juice and sucked
at it like a babe at its mother's breast. Finding nothing
in it, he resigned himself, put the flask down beside
him, swore a little in high German, spat again, waggled
his head to right and left, and went to sleep muttering
inarticulate and unintelligible paternosters.

Ulenspiegel, knowing that this sleep would not last,
and that it must be thickened further, slipped through
the hole in the hedge, took the trooper's flask, and gave
it to Nele, who filled it with brandy.

The trooper did not cease to snore; Ulenspiegel passed
again through the hole in the hedge and put the full
flask between his legs, came back into Katheline's bean
patch and waited behind the hedge with Nele.

Because of the chill of the newly drawn liquor the
trooper awoke a little, and with his first movement
sought what was making him cold under the doublet.

Judging with drunken intuition that this might well
be a full flask, he put his hand to it. Ulenspiegel
and Nele saw him, in the light of the moon, shake the
flask to hear the lap of the liquor, taste it, laugh, marvel
that it should be so full, drink a mouthful, then a good
gulp, put it down on the ground, take it up again and
drink once more.

Then he sang:

When Seigneur Maan comes up the way
To bid good e'en to lady Zee,

To high Germans, dame Zee, which is the sea, is the
wife of Seigneur Maan, which is the moon and the
master of women. And so he sang:

And Lamme Goedzak 191

When Seigneur Maan comes up the way

To bid good e'en to lady Zee,

The lady Zee will straight purvey

A cup of wine spiced daintily,

When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.

With him she then will sup that day

And give of kisses a relay:

And when he's cleared the supper tray

Within her bed to slumber lay

When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.

Just so, my dear, provide for me,
Good food and wine spiced daintily
Just so, my dear, provide for me
When Seigneur Maan comes up the way.

Then drinking and singing a quatrain turn and turn
about, he went to sleep. And he could not hear Nele
saying: "They are in a pot behind the chimney
back"; nor see Ulenspiegel go through the stable into
Claes's kitchen, lift the slab of the chimney back, find
the pot and the carolus, come back into Katheline's
garden, hide the carolus there beside the well wall,
knowing full well that if they were searched for it
would be inside and not outside.

Then they returned to Soetkin and found the sad
wife weeping and saying:

"My husband! My poor husband!"

Nele and Ulenspiegel watched by her until morning.

LXXII

On the morrow, the Borgstorm summoned with loud
peals the judges to the court of the Fierschare.

When they were seated on the four benches, about the
tree of justice, they interrogated Claes afresh and asked
him if he wished to recant his errors.

192 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Claes raised his hand towards heaven:

"Christ, my Lord, seeth me from on high," said he,
"I looked upon his sun when my boy Ulenspiegel was
born. Where is he now, the runagate? Soetkin, my
gentle goodwife, wilt thou be brave against ill fortune?"

Then looking at the linden tree, he said, cursing it:

"Storm winds and drought! make all the trees of the
land of our father die as they stand rather than see
freedom of conscience condemned to death under their
shade. Where art thou, my son Ulenspiegel? I was
hard to thee. Messieurs, have pity upon me and judge
me as Our Compassionate Lord would judge me."

All that heard him wept, save the judges.

Then he asked if there was no pardon for him, saying:

"I toiled all my days, earning but little; I was good
to the poor and comfortable to all men. I left the
Romish Church to obey the spirit of God that spoke to
me. I ask for no other boon than to commute the
penalty of the fire into that of perpetual banishment
for life from the land of Flanders, a penalty already
full grievous."

All that were present cried aloud:

"Pity, sirs! Mercy!"

But Josse Grypstuiver did not cry with them.

The bailiff signed to the people there to be silent and
said that the edicts contained an express prohibition
against asking mercy for heretics; but that if Claes
would abjure his error, he should be executed by the
rope instead of by fire.

And among the people ran the word:

"Fire or rope, it is death."

And the women wept, and the men growled sullen
and low.

And Lamme Goedzak 193

Then said Claes:

"I will not abjure. Do with my body as your
mercy pleases."

The dean of Renaix, Titelman, cried out:

"It is intolerable to see such heretic vermin lift up
its head before its judges; to burn their bodies is but
a fleeting pain; we must save their souls and force them
by the torment to deny their errors, that they may not
give the people the dangerous spectacle of heretics
dying in final impenitence."

At this word the women wept more and more and the
men said:

"Where confession is made, there is penalty, but
no torture."

The court decided that, torture not being laid down in
the Ordinances, there was no ground for making Claes
undergo it. Once more called upon to abjure he replied :

"I cannot."

He was, in accordance with the edicts, declared
guilty of simony, because of the sale of the indulgences,
a heretic, harbourer of heretics, and as such, condemned
to be burned alive until death ensued before the doors
of the Townhall.

His body would be left for two days' space fastened
to the stake to serve as an example and warning, and
thereafter interred in that place where the bodies of
executed criminals are wont to be buried.

The court awarded to the informer, Josse Grypstuiver,
who was not named, fifty florins on the first hundred
florins of the inheritance, and a tenth part of the re-
mainder.

Having heard this sentence, Claes said to the dean

of the fishmongers:

VOL.I. o

194 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Thou shalt come to an ill death and a bad end,
thou man of evil, who for wretched pelf dost make a
widow of a happy wife, and an unhappy orphan of a
lighthearted son."

The judges had allowed Claes to speak, for they also,
all but Titelman, held in scorn and loathing the in-
forming of the dean of the fishmongers.

The latter appeared all livid with shame and rage.

And Claes was taken back to gaol.

LXXIII

On the morrow, which was the day before Claes was
to die, the sentence was made known to Nele, to Ulen-
spiegel, and to Soetkin.

They asked the judges for permission to enter the
prison, which was granted, but not to Nele.

When they went in, they saw Claes fastened to the
wall with a long chain. A little wood fire was burning
in the fireplace because of the dampness. For it is
ordained by law and justice, in Flanders, to be indul-
gent with those that are to die, and to give them bread,
meat or cheese, and wine. But the greedy gaolers
often violate the law, and many of them eat the greater
part and the best of the poor prisoners' food.

Claes embraced Ulenspiegel and Soetkin weeping, but
he was the first to dry his eyes, because such was his
will, being a man and head of a family.

Soetkin wept and Ulenspiegel said:

"I will break these cruel irons."

Soetkin wept, saying:

"I will go to King Philip, he will grant pardon."

Claes replied:

And Lamme Goedzak 195

"The king inherits the goods of the martyrs." Then
he added: "Beloved wife and son, I am about to go
sadly and dolorously out of this world. If I have some
fear of suffering for my body, I am sore troubled also
thinking that, when I am no more, ye will both be poor
and in need, for the king will take all your goods."

Ulenspiegel answered, speaking in a whisper:

"Nele saved all yesterday with me."

"I am full glad of it," replied Claes; "the informer
will not laugh over my spoils."

"Rather let him die first," said Soetkin, her eye
full of hate and without weeping.

But Claes, thinking of the carolus, said:

"Thou wast cunning, Thylken my dear boy; she will
not be hungry then in her old age, Soetkin my widow."

And Claes embraced her, pressing her body tightly
to his breast, and she wept more, thinking that soon
she must lose his sweet protection.

Claes looked at Ulenspiegel and said:

"Son, thou didst often sin as thou didst run upon the
highways, as do wicked lads; thou must do so no more,
my child, nor leave the afflicted widow alone in her
house, for thou owest her protection and defence, thou
the male."

"Father, this I shall do," said Ulenspiegel.

"O my poor husband!" said Soetkin, embracing him.
"What great crime have we committed? We lived
by us two peaceably, an honest simple life, loving one
another well, Lord God, thou knowest it. We arose
betimes to labour, and at night, giving thee thanks,
we ate our daily bread. I will go to the king and rend
him with my nails. Lord God, we were not guilty
folk!"

196 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

But the gaoler came in and they must needs depart.

Soetkin begged to remain. Claes felt her poor face
burn his own, and Soetkin's tears, falling in floods,
wetting his cheeks, and all her poor body shivering and
trembling in his arms. He begged that she might
stay with him.

The gaoler said again that they must go, and took
Soetkin from out of Claes's arms.

Claes said to Ulenspiegel:

"Watch over her."

Ulenspiegel said he would do this. Then he went
away with Soetkin, the son supporting the mother.

LXXIV

On the morrow, which was the day of execution,
the neighbours came and in pity shut up Ulenspiegel,
Soetkin, and Nele, in Katheline's house.

But they had not thought that they could hear
from afar the cries of the victim, and through the
windows see the flame of the fire.

Katheline went roaming about the town, nodding
her head and saying:

"Make a hole, the soul would fain come forth!"

At nine o'clock Claes was brought out from the
prison, in his shirt, his hands bound behind his back.
In accordance with the sentence, the pyre was pre-
pared in the street of Notre Dame around a stake
set up before the doors of the Townhall. The exe-
cutioner and his assistants had not yet made an end
of piling up the wood.

Claes, in the midst of his gaolers, waited patiently
till this task was finished, while the provost, on horse-

And Lamme Goedzak 197

back, and the livened men of the bailiwick, and the
nine lansquenets summoned from Bruges, could barely
keep within bounds of respect the people growling and
unruly.

All said, it was sheer cruelty to murder thus in his
old age, unjustly, a poor fellow so kind hearted, com-
passionate, and stout hearted in toil.

Suddenly they all knelt down and prayed. The bells
of Notre Dame were tolling for the dead.

Katheline also was in the crowd of the common
people, in the first row, and all beside herself. Looking
at Claes and the pyre, she said, nodding her head:

"The fire! the fire! Make a hole; the soul would
fain escape!"

Soetkin and Nele, hearing the bells tolling, both
crossed themselves. But Ulenspiegel did not, saying
that he would no longer worship God after the fashion
of murderers. And he ran about the cottage, seeking
to break down doors and to leap out through windows;
but all were guarded.

Suddenly Soetkin cried out, hiding her face in her
apron:

"The smoke!"

The three afflicted ones saw indeed in the sky a great
whirl of smoke, all black. It was the smoke of the
pyre on which was Claes bound to a stake, and which
the executioner had just set fire to in three places in the
name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Ghost. Claes looked about him, and not per-
ceiving Soetkin and Ulenspiegel in the crowd, he was
glad, thinking they would not behold him suffering.

No other sound was to be heard but the voice of Claes
praying, the wood crackling, men growling, women

198 The Legend of U lens pie gel

weeping, Katheline saying: — "Take away the fire,
make a hole: the soul would fain escape." — and the
bells of Notre Dame tolling for the dead.

Suddenly Soetkin became white as snow, shuddered
in all her body without weeping, and pointed with her
finger to the sky. A long narrow flame had just spouted
up from the pyre and rose at moments above the roofs
of the low houses. It was cruelly tormenting to Claes,
for according to the whims of the wind it gnawed at his
legs, touched his beard and made it frizzle and smoke,
licked at his hair and burned it.

Ulenspiegel held Soetkin in his arms and would have
dragged her away from the window. They heard a
piercing cry, it came from Claes whose body was burn-
ing on one side only. But he held his tongue and wept,
and his breast was all wet with his tears.

Then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel heard a great noise of
voices. This was the citizens, women and children,
crying out:

"Claes was not condemned to burn by a slow fire, but
by a great one. Executioner, make the pyre burn
up!"

The executioner did so, but the fire did not catch
quickly enough.

"Strangle him," they cried.

And they cast stones at the provost.

"The flame! The great flame!" cried Soetkin.

In very deed, a red flame climbed up the sky in the
midst of the smoke.

"He is about to die," said the widow. "Lord God,
have pity upon the soul of the innocent. Where is the
king, that I may rip out his heart with my nails?"

The bells of Notre Dame were tolling for the dead.

And Lamme Goedzak 199

Soetkin heard Claes again utter a loud cry, but she
saw not his body writhing from the torment of the
flame, nor his face twisting, nor his head that he turned
every way and beat against the wood of the stake. The
people continued to cry out and to hiss; women and
boys threw stones, and all heard Claes saying, from the
midst of the flame and the smoke:

" Soetkin IThyl!"

And his head fell forward on his breast like a head of
lead.

And a lamentable shrill and piercing cry was heard
coming from out of Katheline's cottage. Then none
heard aught else, save the poor witless woman nodding
her head and saying: "The soul woulcl fain escape!"

Claes was dead. The pyre having burned out sank
down at the foot of the stake. And the poor body, all
blackened, stayed on it hanging by the neck.

And the bells of Notre Dame tolled for the dead.

LXXV

Soetkin was in Katheline's standing against the wall,
her head hanging low and her hands joined together.
She was holding Ulenspiegel in her embrace, neither
speaking nor weeping.

Ulenspiegel also remained silent ; he was terrified to feel
the fire of fever with which his mother's body burned.

The neighbours, being back from the place of execu-
tion, said that Claes had ended his sufferings.

"He is in glory," said the widow.

"Pray," said Nele to Ulenspiegel: and she gave him
her rosary; but he would by no means make use of it,
because, said he, the beads had been blessed by the Pope.

2OO The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Night having fallen, Ulenspiegel said to the widow:
"Mother, we must put you in bed: I shall watch beside
you."

But Soetkin: "I have no need," said she, "that you
should watch; sleep is good for young men."

Nele made ready a bed for each in the kitchen, then
she went away.

They stayed together as long as the remains of a fire
of roots burned in the chimney place.

Soetkin went to bed, Ulenspiegel likewise, and heard
her weeping beneath the coverlets.

Outside, in the silence of night, the wind made the
trees by the canal complain with a sound as of the
sea, and, harbinger of autumn, flung dust in whirlwinds
against the cottage windows.

Ulenspiegel saw as it might be a man coming and
going; he heard as it might be a sound of feet in the
kitchen. Looking, he saw no man; hearkening, he heard
nothing now but the wind soughing in the chimney and
Soetkin weeping under her bedclothes.

Then he heard steps again, and behind him, at his
head, a sigh. . . . "Who is there?" he said.

None answered, but three knocks were given on the
table. Ulenspiegel grew afraid, and trembling: "Who
is there?" he said again. He received no answer but
three knocks on the table and he felt two arms clasp
and strain him, and a body lean upon his face, a body
whose skin was wrinkled and that had a great hole in its
breast and a smell of burning:

"Father," said Ulenspiegel, "is it thy poor body that
weighs thus upon me?"

He got no answer, and although the shade was beside
him, he heard a cry without: "Thyl! Thyl!" Suddenly

And Lamme Goedzak 201

Soetkin rose and came to Ulenspiegel's bed, "Dost thou
hear naught?" said she.

"Aye," said he, "the father calling on me."

"I," said Soetkin, "I felt a cold body beside me in
my bed; and the mattresses moved, and the curtains
were shaken and I heard a voice saying: Soetkin; a
voice low as a breath, and a step light as the sound of
a gnat's wings." Then speaking to Claes's spirit: —
"Husband," she said, "if thou desirest aught in heaven
where God keeps thee in his glory, thou must tell us
what it is, that we may carry out thy will."

Suddenly a blast blew the door open impetuously,
filling the chamber with dust, and Ulenspiegel and
Soetkin heard the far-off croakings of ravens.

They went out together and came to the pyre.

The night was black, save when the clouds, driven away
by the sharp north wind and galloping like stags across
the sky, left the face of the moon clear and shining.

A constable of the commune was patrolling, keeping
guard on the pyre. Ulenspiegel and Soetkin heard
the sound of his steps upon the hard ground and the
voice of a raven, doubtless calling others, for from afar
croakings answered him.

Ulenspiegel and Soetkin having drawn near to the
dead fire, the raven alit upon Claes's shoulder; they
heard the blows of his beak upon the body, and soon
other ravens arrived.

Ulenspiegel would have leaped upon the pyre and
struck at the ravens: the constable said to him:

"Wizard, seekest thou hands of glory? Know that
the hands of men burned do not render invisible, but
only the hands of men hanged as thou shalt be one day."

"Messire Constable," answered Ulenspiegel, "I am

2O2 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

no wizard, but the orphaned son of him who is there
fastened, and this woman is his widow. We were but
minded to kiss him once again and to have a little of
his ashes in memory of him. Give us leave for this,
messire, who art no trooper from a foreign country, but
a very son of this land."

"Be it as thou wouldst," replied the constable.

The orphan and the widow, going over the burnt
wood, came to the body; both kissed with tears the
face of Claes.

Ulenspiegel took from the place of the heart, where
the flames had made a great hole, a little of the dead
man's ashes. Then kneeling, Soetkin and he prayed.
When the dawn appeared pallid in the heavens, they
were both there still; but the constable drove them away
for fear of being punished because of his good-will.

Returning, Soetkin took a piece of red silk and a
piece of black silk; with these she made a sachet, and
then put the ashes in it, and to the sachet sewed two
ribbands, so that Ulenspiegel could always wear it on
his neck. When she was putting the sachet in its place
on him, she said to him:

"Let these ashes, that are the heart of my man, this
red that is his blood, this black that is our mourning,
be ever on thy breast, like the fire of vengeance upon
the murderers."

"I would have it even so," said Ulenspiegel.

And the widow embraced the orphan, and the sun
arose.

LXXVI

On the morrow came the constables and criers of the
commune to Claes's house to set all its plenishing in the

And Lamme Goedzak 203

street and proceed to the sale by law appointed. Soet-
kin from Katheline's saw them bring down the brass
and iron cradle which from father to son had always
been in the house of Claes where the poor dead man
had been born, where Ulenspiegel also had been born.
Then they brought down the bed where Soetkin had
conceived her son and where she had spent such good
nights on her husband's shoulder. Then came, too, the
cupboard where she put away her bread, the press in
which, in good times, meats were kept, pans, kettles, and
cooking pots no longer shining and scoured as in the
good days of happiness, but sullied with the dust of neg-
lect. And they recalled to her the family feasts when
the neighbours used to come drawn to the good savours.

Then came, too, a cask and a little cask of simpel and
dobbel-cuyt, and, in a basket, flasks of wine, of which
there were at least thirty; and all was set down upon
the street, down to the last nail the poor widow heard
them dragging noisily out of the walls.

Sitting, she looked on without uttering cry or com-
plaint, and all heartbroken, beholding these humble
riches carried off. The crier having lighted a candle, the
things were sold by auction. The candle was near its
end when the dean of the fishmongers had bought all
for a miserable price to sell again; and he seemed to be
as pleased as a weasel sucking the brain of a hen.

Ulenspiegel said in his heart: "Thou shalt not laugh
long, murderer."

The sale ended, meanwhile, and the constables who
were searching everywhere did not find the carolus.
The fishmonger exclaimed:

"Ye search ill: I know that Claes had seven hundred
six months ago."

204 The Legend of U lens pie gel

Ulenspiegel said in his heart: "Thou shalt not be the
heir to them, murderer."

Suddenly Soetkin turning towards him:

"The informer!" said she, showing him the fish-
monger.

" I know that," said he.

"Would you suffer him," said she, "to inherit from
the father's blood?"

"Rather would I endure a whole day on the torture
bench," replied Ulenspiegel.

Quoth Soetkin :

"I, too, but do not give me away for pity, whatever
torment you may see me enduring."

"Alas! you are a woman," said Ulenspiegel.

"Poor lad," said she, "I brought you into the world,
and know how to suffer. But you, if I saw you. ..."
Then growing pale: "I will pray Madame the Virgin,
who saw her son upon the cross."

And she wept, caressing Ulenspiegel.

And thus was made between them a pact of hate and
force.

LXXVII

The fishmonger need pay only one half of the price
of his purchase, the other half serving to pay him the
reward of his informing, until they should have re-
covered the seven hundred carolus that had impelled
him to his villainy.

Soetkin spent the nights in weeping and the day in
the tasks of housekeeping. Often Ulenspiegel heard
her talking all alone and saying:

"If he inherits, I shall kill myself."

Knowing that she would indeed do as she said, Nele

And Lamme Goedzak 205

and he did all they could to get Soetkin to retire to
Walcheren, where she had kinsfolk. Soetkin would by
no means do this, saying she had no need to run away
from the worms that would soon eat her widowed
bones.

In the meanwhile, the fishmonger had gone afresh to
the bailiff and had told him that the defunct had in-
herited seven hundred carolus but a few months before,
that he was a niggardly man and living on little, and
therefore had not spent all that large amount, which
was doubtless hidden away in some corner.

The bailiff asked him what harm had Ulenspiegel
and Soetkin done him that having robbed one of a
father and the other of her husband, he still racked his
wits to harass them cruelly.

The fishmonger replied that being a leading burgess
of Damme, he desired to have the laws of the empire
respected and thus to deserve His Majesty's clemency.

Having said so much, he deposited in the bailiff's
hands a written charge, and brought forward witnesses
who, speaking in all truth and sincerity, must certify
reluctantly that the fishmonger was no liar.

The members of the Chamber of Aldermen, having
heard the testimony of the witnesses, declared the in-
dications of guilt sufficient to warrant the application
of torture. They sent, therefore, to have the house
thoroughly searched once again by sergeants who
had full powers to fetch the mother and the son to the
town gaol, where they were detained until the execu-
tioner should come from Bruges, whither they sent to
summon him immediately.

When Ulenspiegel and Soetkin passed along the
street, their hands tied behind them, the fishmonger

206 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

was posted on the threshold of his house, to look at
them.

And the citizens of Damme, men and women, were
on the thresholds of their houses also. Mathyssen, a
near neighbour of the fishmonger, heard Ulenspiegel say
to the informer:

"God will curse thee, tormentor of widows!"

And Soetkin saying to him:

"Thou wilt come to an ill end, persecutor of or-
phans!"

The folk of Damme having thus learned that it was
upon a second denunciation by Grypstuiver that the
widow and the orphan were thus being haled off to
prison, hooted the fishmonger, and that night flung
stones through his windows. And his door was covered
with filth.

And he no longer dared to leave his own house.

LXXVIII

Towards ten o'clock in the forenoon Ulenspiegel and
Soetkin were brought into the torture chamber.

There were the bailiff, the clerk and the sheriffs, the
executioner from Bruges, his assistant and a barber
surgeon.

The bailiff asked Soetkin if she was not holding back
goods that belonged to the Emperor. She replied that
having nothing, she could hold back nothing.

"And thou?" asked the bailiff, speaking to Ulen-
spiegel.

"Seven months since," said he, "we inherited seven
hundred carolus; some of these we ate. As for the
others, I cannot tell where they are; I think indeed that

And Lamme Goedzak 207

the traveller on foot that stayed in our house, for our
undoing, took the rest away, for I have seen nothing
since then."

The bailiff asked again if both persisted in declaring
themselves innocent.

They answered that they were holding back nothing
that belonged to the Emperor.

The bailiff then said gravely and sadly:

"The charges against you being serious and the ac-
cusation well sustained, you must needs, if you do not
confess, undergo the question."

"Spare the widow," said Ulenspiegel. "The fish-
monger has bought up everything."

"Poor lad," said Soetkin, "men cannot endure pain
as women can."

Seeing Ulenspiegel pale as the dead because of her,
she said again:

"I have hate and force."

"Spare the widow," said Ulenspiegel.

"Take me in his stead," said Soetkin.

The bailiff asked the executioner if he had in readi-
ness the implements and all things needful to discover
the truth.

The executioner replied:

"They are all here."

The judges, having consulted, decided that, in order
to come at the truth, they should begin with the woman.

"For," said one of the sheriffs, "there is no son so
cruel or hard hearted as to see his mother suffer without
making confession of the crime and so to deliver her;
the same will do any mother, were she a tigress at heart,
for her offspring."

Speaking to the executioner, the bailiff said :

208 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Make the woman sit in the chair and put the
baguettes on her hands and her feet."

The executioner obeyed.

"Oh, do not do that, Messieurs Judges!" cried
Ulenspiegel. "Bind me in her place, break my fingers
and my toes, but spare the widow."

"The fishmonger," said Soetkin. "I have hate and
force."

Ulenspiegel seemed livid pale, trembling, beside him-
self, and held his peace.

The baguettes were little rods of boxwood, placed
between each finger and toe, touching the bone, and
joined together with strings by an instrument so craftily
designed that the executioner could, at the behest of the
judge, squeeze all the fingers together, strip the bones
of their flesh, grind them terribly, or give the victim
only a slight pain.

He put the baguettes on Soetkin's hands and feet.

"Tighten," said the bailiff.

He did so cruelly.

Then the bailiff, addressing himself to Soetkin:

"Discover to me," said he, "the place where the
carolus are hidden."

"I do not know it," she replied, groaning.

"Harder," said he.

Ulenspiegel twisted his arms that were bound be-
hind his back to be rid of the rope and so come to
Soetkin's aid.

"Do not tighten them, messieurs judges," said he,
"do not tighten them, these be but woman's bones,
thin and brittle. A bird could break them with its
beak. Do not tighten them, sirs — master executioner,
I do not speak to you, for you must needs be obedient

And Lamme Goedzak 209

to these gentlemen's orders. O do not bid him tighten
them; have pity!"

"The fishmonger," said Soetkin.

And Ulenspiegel held his peace.

However, seeing that the executioner was locking the
baguettes tighter still, he cried out again :

"Pity, sirs!" he said. "Ye are breaking the widow's
fingers that she needeth to work withal. Alas! her
feet! Will she never walk again now? Pity, sirs!"

"Thou shalt come to an ill end, fishmonger," cried
Soetkin.

And the bones crackled and the blood from her feet
fell in little drops.

Ulenspiegel looked at all this, and trembling with
anguish and with rage, he said:

"A woman's bones, do not break them, sirs!"

"The fishmonger," groaned Soetkin.

And her voice was low and stifled like the voice of a
ghost.

Ulenspiegel trembled and cried out:

"Master judges, her hands are bleeding and her feet,
too. The widow's bones are broken, broken!"

The barber surgeon touched them with his finger,
and Soetkin uttered a loud scream.

"Confess for her," said the bailifFto Ulenspiegel.

But Soetkin looked at him with eyes like the eyes
of the dead, wide open and staring. And he knew he
could not speak, and he wept and said nothing.

But the bailiff said next :

"Since this woman is gifted with a man's fortitude,
we must try her courage before the torments of her son."

Soetkin heard nothing, for she had lost her senses by

reason of the great agony she had suffered.

VOL.I. p

2io The Legend of U lens pie gel

They brought her back to consciousness with much
vinegar. Then Ulenspiegel was stripped naked before
the widow's eyes. The executioner shaved his head and
his whole body, so as to spy that he had no wicked spell
on him. Then he perceived on his back the little black
mark he carried from his birth. He thrust a long
needle into it several times; but as the blood came, he
decided that there was no sorcery in the mark. At the
bailiff's order, the hands of Ulenspiegel were tied with
two cords running over a pulley fixed to the roof so that
the executioner at the judges' pleasure could hoist him
up and let him drop with a brutal jerk; which he did
nine times, having first hung a weight of twenty-five
pounds on each foot.

At the ninth time, the skin of his wrists and ankles
tore, and the bones of his legs began to come out of
their sockets.

"Confess," said the bailiff.

"No," replied Ulenspiegel.

Soetkin looked at her son and could find no strength
either to cry out or to speak; only she stretched forth
her arms, fluttering her bleeding hands and showing
thus that they must make an end of this torment.

The executioner ran Ulenspiegel up and down yet
again. And the skin of his wrists and ankles was torn
still more; and the bones of his legs came out of their
sockets further still; but he uttered no cry.

Soetkin wept and fluttered her bleeding hands.

"Confess the concealment," said the bailiff, "and
you shall have pardon for it."

"The fishmonger hath need of pardon," answered
Ulenspiegel.

"Wiltthou mock thy judges?" said one of the sheriffs.

And Lamme Goedzak 211

"Mock? Alas!" replied Ulenspiegel, "I but feign to
mock, believe me."

Soetkin then saw the executioner, who, at the bailiff's
order, was blowing up a brazier of red coals, and an
assistant who was lighting two candles. She would
fain have risen up on her murdered feet, but fell back
to a sitting posture, and exclaiming:

"Take away that fire!" she cried. "Ah! master
judges, spare his poor youth. Take away the fire!"

"The fishmonger!" cried Ulenspiegel, seeing her
weakening. -

"Raise Ulenspiegel a foot above the ground," said
the bailiff; "set the brazier underneath his feet and a
candle under either armpit."

The executioner obeyed. What hair was left in his
armpits crackled and smoked in the flame.

Ulenspiegel cried out, and Soetkin, weeping, said:

"Take the fire away!"

The bailiff said:

"Confess the concealment and thou shalt be set at
liberty. Confess for him, woman."

And Ulenspiegel said: "Who will throw the fish-
monger into the fire that burneth for ever?"

Soetkin made sign with her head that she had nothing
to say. Ulenspiegel ground and gnashed his teeth, and
Soetkin looked at him with haggard eyes and all in tears.

Nevertheless, when the executioner, having blown
out the candles, set the burning brazier under Ulenspie-
gel's feet, she cried:

"Master judges, have pity upon him: he knows not
what he saith."

"Why doth he not know what he saith?" asked the
bailiff, craftily.

212 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Do not question her, master judges; ye see full well
that she is out of her wits with torment. The fish-
monger lied," said Ulenspiegel.

"Wilt thou say the same as he, woman?" asked the
bailiff.

Soetkin made sign with her head to say yes.

"Burn the fishmonger!" cried Ulenspiegel.

Soetkin held her peace, raising her clenched fist into
the air as though to curse.

Yet seeing the brazier burn up more fiercely under
her son's feet, she cried:

"O Lord God! Madame Mary that art in heaven,
put an end to this torment! Have pity! Take the
brazier away!"

"The fishmonger!" groaned Ulenspiegel again.

And he vomited blood in great gushes through nose
and mouth, and letting his head fall, hung suspended
above the coals.

Then Soetkin cried:

"He is dead, my poor orphan! They have killed
him! Ah! him, too. Take away this brazier, master
judges! Let me take him into my arms to die also, I,
too, to die with him. Ye know I cannot flee on my
broken feet."

"Give the widow her son," said the bailiff.

Then the judges deliberated together.

The executioner unbound Ulenspiegel, and laid him
all naked and covered with blood upon Soetkin's knees,
while the barber surgeon put back his bones in their
sockets.

All the while Soetkin embraced Ulenspiegel, and said,
weeping:

"Son, poor martyr! If the judges will, I shall heal

And Lamme Goedzak 213

thee, I; but awaken, Thyl, my son! Master judges, if
ye have killed him on me, I shall go to His Majesty; for
ye have done contrary to all laws and justice, and ye
shall see what one poor woman can do against wicked
men. But, sirs, leave us free together. We have
nothing but our two selves in the world, poor wretches
on whom the hand of God has been heavy."

Having deliberated, the judges gave out the following
sentence:

"Inasmuch as you, Soetkin, lawful widow of Claes,
and you, Thyl, son of Claes, and called Ulenspiegel,
having been accused of fraudulently withholding the
goods that by confiscation were the property of His
Majesty the King, maugre all privileges contrary to
this, despite severe torture and adequate ordeal, have
confessed to nothing:

"The court, considering the absence of sufficient
proofs, and in you, woman, the piteous condition of
your members, and in you, man, the harsh torment you
have undergone, declares you both at liberty, and ac-
cords you permission to take up your abode in the house
of him or her who may please to give you lodging, in
spite of your poverty.

"Thus decreed at Damme, the three and twentieth
day of October in the year of Our Lord 1558."

"Thanks be to you, master judges," said Soetkin.

"The fishmonger!" groaned Ulenspiegel.

And mother and son were taken to the house of
Katheline in a cart.

LXXIX

In this year, which was the fifty-eighth of the century,
Katheline went into Soetkin's house, and said:

214 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Last night, having anointed myself with a balsam,
I was carried to the tower of Notre Dame, and I beheld
the spirits of the element passing on to the angels the
prayers of men who flying towards the farthest heavens,
bore them to the throne. And the sky was all over
sprinkled with radiant stars, Suddenly there rose up
from a fire pile a shape that seemed all black and
climbed up to set himself beside me on the tower. I
recognized Claes as he was in life, clad in his coalman's
attire. 'What dost thou,' said he, 'on the tower of
Notre Dame?' 'But thyself,' I replied, 'whither goest
thou, flying through the air like a bird?' 'I go,' he said,
'to the judgment, dost thou not hear the angel's trump ?'
I was quite close to him, and felt that his spiritual body
was not solid like the bodies of living men; but so tenu-
ous that moving forward against him, I entered into it
as into a hot vapour. At my feet, in all the land of
Flanders, there shone a few lights, and I said to myself:
'Those who rise early and work late are the blessed of
God.'

"And all the while I heard the angel's trumpet sound-
ing through the night. And I saw then another shade
that mounted, coming out of Spain; this one was old
and decrepit, had a chin like a slipper and preserve
of quince on its lips. It wore on its back a cloak of
crimson velvet lined with ermine, on its head a crown
imperial, in one hand an anchovy which it was munch-
ing, in the other a tankard full of beer.

"It came, doubtless for weariness, and sate down on
the tower of Notre Dame. Kneeling down, I said to it:
'Crowned Majesty, I revere you, but I know you not.
Whence come you and what do you in the world?' 'I
come,' it said, 'from Saint Just in Estramadura, and I

And Lamme Goedzak 215

was the Emperor Charles the Fifth.' 'But,' said I,
'whither go you as now on this cold night, through these
clouds laden with hail?' 'I go,' it said, 'to the judg-
ment.' Just as the Emperor was fain to finish his an-
chovy and to drink his beer from his tankard, the
angel's trumpet sounded, and he flew up into the air
growling and grumbling at being thus interrupted in
his meal. I followed His Sacred Majesty. He went
through space, hiccoughing with fatigue, wheezing with
asthma, and sometimes vomiting, for death had come
on him during a spell of indigestion. We mounted
continually, like arrows sped from a bow of cornelwood.
The stars glided beside us, tracing lines of fire in the
sky; we saw them break loose and fall. And still the
trumpet of the angel kept a-sounding. What a mighty
and sonorous blare! At every flourish, as it beat
against the mists of the air, they opened up as though
some hurricane blast had blown upon them from near
at hand. And so was our path marked out for us.
Having been borne away for a thousand leagues and
more, we beheld Christ in his glory, seated on a throne
of stars, and on his right hand was the angel that in-
scribes the deeds of men upon a brazen register, and on
his left hand Mary his mother, entreating him without
ceasing for sinners.

"Claes and the Emperor Charles knelt down before
the throne.

"The angel cast the crown from off Charles's head:
'There is but one emperor here,' said he, 'that is Christ.'

"His Sacred Majesty seemed angry; nevertheless,
speaking humbly: 'Might I not,' said he, 'keep this
anchovy and this tankard of beer, for this long journey
made me hungry.'

216 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"'As thou wast all thy life long,' rejoined the angel;
'but eat and drink none the less.'

"The Emperor drained the tankard of beer and
munched at the anchovy.

"Then Christ spake and said:

"'Dost thou offer a cleansed soul for judgment?'

"'I hope as much, my sweet Lord, for I confessed
myself,' replied the Emperor Charles.

"'And thou, Claes?' said Christ, 'thou dost not
tremble as doth this emperor.'

"'My Lord Jesus,' answered Claes, 'there is no soul
that is clean; I am not, therefore, afraid of Thee who
art the supreme good and the supreme justice, but
withal I fear for my sins that were many.'

"'Speak, carrion,' said the angel, addressing the
Emperor.

"'I, Lord,' replied Charles in an embarrassed voice,
'being anointed by the finger of Thy priests, I was con-
secrated King of Castile, Emperor of Germany, and
King of the Romans. I had ever at heart the preserva-
tion of the power that cometh from Thee, and to that
end I wrought by the rope, by the steel, by the pit, and
by the fire against all them of the reform."

"But the angel:

'"Belly-aching liar,' said he, 'thou wouldst fain
deceive us. Thou didst tolerate the reformers in
Germany, because thou wast afeard of them, and had
them beheaded, burned, hanged, and buried alive in
the Low Countries, where thou hadst no fear save not
to inherit enough from these toiling bees so rich in
plenteous honey. A hundred thousand souls perished
by thy doing, not because thou didst love Christ,
monseigneur, but because thou wast a despot, tyrant,

And Lamme Goedzak 217

devourer of countries, loving but thyself, and after
thyself, meats, fishes, wines, and beers, for thou wast
as great a glutton as any dog, and thirsty as a sponge.'

"'And thou, Claes, speak/ said Christ.

"But the angel, standing up:

"'This one hath naught to say. He was good, hard-
working like the poor Flanders folk, willing to toil and
willing to laugh, keeping the faith he owed his princes
and believing that his princes would keep the faith they
owed to him. He had money, he was accused, and as
he had harboured one of the reformed, he was burned
alive/

"'Ah,' said Mary, 'poor martyr, but there are in
heaven cool springs, fountains of milk, and choice wine
that will refresh thee, and I will myself lead thee to
them, coalman!'

"The trumpet of the angel sounded again, and I saw
arising from the depths of the abyss a man naked and
beautiful, with a crown of iron. And on the round of
the crown were inscribed these words: 'Dark until the
day of doom!'

" He drew near to the throne and said to Christ :

:"I am thy slave until I am thy master.'

'"Sajtan,' said Mary, 'a day shall come when there
will be no more slaves or masters, and when Christ who
is love, Satan who is pride, will signify: Might and
Knowledge.'

"Woman,5 said Satan, 'thou art fair and kind.'

"Then speaking to Christ, and pointing to the
Emperor:

' 'What is to be done with this one ?' said he.

"Christ replied:

("Thou shalt put the crowned worm in a chamber

2i8 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

where thou shalt collect all the implements of torment
used during his reign. Each time a wretched, innocent
man endureth the torment of the water, which bloweth
men up like bladders; of the candles, that burneth the
soles of the feet and the armpits; the strappado, which
breaketh the limbs; the riving asunder by four galleys;
every time a free soul gives up its last breath on the
fire, he must undergo all these deaths in turn, all these
tortures, that he may learn what evil may be wrought
by an unjust man that hath at command millions of
his fellow men: let him rot in gaols, die upon scaffolds,
groan in exile far from his own country; let him be dis-
honoured, shamefully entreated, scourged; let him be
rich and harried by the treasury; let informers bring
accusations against him, and confiscations ruin him.
Thou shalt make of him an ass, that he may be meek,
ill treated, and ill fed; a poor man, that he may ask for
alms and be greeted with insults; a worker that he may
toil too much and eat too little; then when he shall have
suffered sorely in his man's body and soul, thou shalt
turn him into a dog, that he may be friendly, and be
beaten; a slave in the Indies, that he may be sold by
auction; a soldier, that he may fight for another man
and be slain without knowing wherefore. And when,
at the end of three hundred years, he will thus have gone
through every form of suffering, every distress, thou
shalt make a free man of him, and if in this condition
he is good as was Claes, thou shalt give his body eternal
repose, in a spot shaded at noon, visited by the sun
in the morning, under a goodly tree, and covered by
a cool verdant sward. And his friends will come to
shed their tears of grief upon his tomb, and sow violets,
the blossoms of remembrance.'

And Lamme Goedzak 219

'' 'Pardon, my son/ said Mary, 'he knew not what he
did, for power hardeneth the heart/

"'There is no pardon/ said Christ.

"'Ah!' said His Sacred Majesty, 'if only I had a glass
of Andalusian wine!'

"'Come/ said Satan, 'past is the time of wine, of
meats and fowls.'

"And he bore away to the uttermost deeps of hell the
soul of the poor emperor, still munching his fragment
of anchovy.

"Satan for pity left it to him. Then I saw Madame
the Virgin leading Claes to the highest height of heaven,
there where was naught but stars hanging like clusters
of grapes to the vaulted roof. And there angels laved
him and he became handsome and young. Then they
gave him rystpap to eat, in silver spoons. And heaven
closed again."

"He is in glory," said the widow.

"The ashes beat against my heart," said Ulenspiegel.

LXXX

During the next three and twenty days Katheline
grew white, and thin, drying up as though she were
devoured by a fire within more consuming than the fire
of madness.

She said no longer: "The fire! Make a hole: the soul
would fain escape," but ever in ecstasy and delight she
would say to Nele: "Spouse am I: spouse thou art
to be. Handsome; long hair; hot love; knees cold and
cold arms!"

And Soetkin looked on her grieving, for she thought
this some new madness.

220 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Katheline continued:

"Thrice three make nine, the sacred number. He
that in the night hath eyes shining as a cat's alone
seeth the mystery."

One night Soetkin, hearing her, made a movement of
doubting.

But Katheline:

"Four and three," said she, "misfortune under
Saturn; under Venus, the marriage number. Cold
arms! Cold knees! Heart of fire!"

Soetkin made answer:

"It is not well to speak of wicked heathen idols."

Hearing which Katheline made the sign of the cross
and said:

"Blessed be the gray horseman. Nele must have a
husband, a handsome husband carrying a sword, a
black husband with a shining face."

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel, "a fricassee of husbands for
which I shall make the sauce with my knife."

Nele looked at her friend with eyes all moist for the
pleasure of seeing him so jealous.

"I want no husband," said she.

Katheline replied:

"When he that is clad in gray shall come, ever booted
and spurred in another fashion."

Soetkin said:

"Pray to God for the poor madwife."

"Ulenspiegel," said Katheline, "go fetch us four
quarts of dobbel-cuyt whilst I go to prepare the heete-
koeken"; which are pancakes in the land of France.

Soetkin asked why she made feast on Saturday like
the Jews.

Katheline answered:

And Lamme Goedzak 221

"Because the dough is ready."

Ulenspiegel was standing holding in his hand the
great pewter pot, which held the exact measure.

"Mother, what must I do?"

"Go," said Katheline.

Soetkin would not answer, not being mistress in the
house: she said to Ulenspiegel, "Go, my son."

Ulenspiegel ran up to the Scaeck, whence he brought
back the four quarts of dobbel-cuyt.

Soon the perfume of the heete-koeken spread through-
out the kitchen, and all were hungry, even the sorrow-
stricken widow.

Ulenspiegel ate heartily. Katheline had given him
a great tankard saying that being the only male, and
head in the house, he must drink more than the others
and sing afterwards.

Saying this, she had a crafty look; but Ulenspiegel
drank and did not sing. Nele wept, looking at Soetkin
all pale and huddled down; only Katheline was gay.

After the meal Soetkin and Ulenspiegel went up to
the garret to go to bed; Katheline and Nele remained
in the kitchen where the beds were prepared.

Towards two in the morning, Ulenspiegel had long
been asleep by reason of the heavy drink; Soetkin, with
eyes open even as she had every night, was praying to
Madame the Virgin to send her sleep, but Madame did
not give ear.

Suddenly she heard the cry of a sea eagle and from
the kitchen a like cry in answer; then from afar in the
country, other cries resounded, and always she deemed
that there was an answer from the kitchen.

Thinking that these were night birds, she paid no
heed to them. She heard the neighing of horses and

222 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

the clatter of iron-shod hoofs striking on the causeway;
she opened the window of the garret and saw indeed
two horses, saddled, pawing the ground, and browsing
on the grass of the roadside. Then she heard the voice
of a woman crying out, a man's voice threatening, blows
struck, fresh cries, the banging of a door, and an ago-
nized foot climbing the steps of the stair.

Ulenspiegel snored and heard nothing at all; the
garret door opened; Nele came in all but naked, out
of breath, panting, weeping, and sobbing, against the
door she thrust a table, chairs, an old stove, all she
could find in the shape of furniture. The last stars
were nearly extinguished, the cocks were beginning to
crow.

Ulenspiegel, at the noise that Nele had made, had
turned in his bed, but still continued to sleep.

Nele then, flinging herself on Soetkin's neck: "Soet-
kin," she said, "I am afraid, light the candle."

'Soetkin did so; and Nele still groaned the while.

The candle being lit, Soetkin looked at Nele and saw
the girl's chemise torn at the shoulder and on her fore-
head, her cheek, and her neck bloody scratches such as
might be made by fingernails.

"Nele," said Soetkin, embracing her, "whence come
you wounded in this fashion ? "

The girl, still trembling and moaning, said: "Do not
have us burned, Soetkin."

In the meantime, Ulenspiegel awaked and was blink-
ing in the candlelight. Soetkin said: "Who is below
there?"

Nele replied:

"Hold thy peace, it is the husband she wants to give
me."

And Lamme Goedzak 223

Soetkin and Nele all at once heard Katheline cry out,
and their limbs gave way under both of them.

"He is beating her, he is beating her on my account,"
said Nele.

" Who is in the house ? " cried Ulenspiegel, leaping out
of his bed. Then rubbing his eyes, he went searching
about the chamber until he had got his hands on a
weighty poker lying in a corner.

"No one," said Nele, "nobody at all; do not go down,
Ulenspiegel!"

But he, paying no heed to anything, ran to the door,
flinging aside chairs, tables, and stove. Katheline
ceased not to cry out below; Nele and Soetkin clung to
Ulenspiegel on the landing, one with her arms about his
body, the other holding by his legs, saying: "Do not go
down, Ulenspiegel, they are devils."

"Aye," he replied, "devil-husband of Nele, I will join
him in wedlock with my poker. Betrothal of iron and
flesh! Let me go down."

But still they would not let go, for they were strong
by reason of their holding on the balusters. He dragged
them down the steps of the staircase, and they were
afraid at thus drawing nearer to the devils. But they
could do nothing against him. Descending by leaps
and bounds like a great snowball from the top of a
mountain, he went into the kitchen, saw Katheline
worn out and wan in the light of the dawn, and heard
her saying: "Hanske, why dost thou leave me alone?
It is not my fault if Nele is bad."

Ulenspiegel, without staying to listen to her, opened
the stable door. Finding no one within, he dashed out
into the garden and from thence into the highway;
far off he saw two horses galloping and losing themselves

224 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

in the mist. He ran to catch them up, but could not,
for they went like the storm winds sweeping up the with-
ered leaves.

Vexed and wild with anger and despair, he came back
again, saying between his teeth: "They have violated
her! they have violated her!" And with an ill flame
burning in his eyes he looked on Nele, who, all shudder-
ing, standing before the widow and Katheline, said:
"No Thyl, no, my beloved, no!'*

Saying so, she looked into his eyes so seriously and so
candidly that Ulenspiegel well perceived that she spoke
the truth. Then questioning her:

"Whence came these cries?" said he; "where were
those men going? Why is thy chemise torn at the
shoulder and the back? Why hast thou on thy cheek
and forehead the marks of fingernails?"

"Listen," said she, "but do not have us burned,
Ulenspiegel. Katheline, may God preserve her from
hell! has now for three and twenty days a devil for
lover, clad in black, booted and spurred. His face
shines with the fire seen in summertime upon the waves
of the sea when it is hot."

"Why art thou gone, Hanske, my darling?" said
Katheline. "Nele is bad."

But Nele, going on with her tale, said: "He cries like
a sea eagle to announce his presence. My mother sees
him in the kitchen every Saturday. She says that his
kisses are cold and his body like snow. He beats
her when she does not do all that he would have her do.
He once brought her some florins, but he took all the
others from her."

During this tale, Soetkin, clasping her hands, prayed
for Katheline. Katheline said, rejoicing:

And Lamme Goedzak 225

"Mine is my body no longer, mine no longer is my
spirit, but his. Hanske, my darling, bring me to the
sabbath again. There is only Nele that never hath
mind to come; Nele is bad."

"At daybreak he was wont to depart," continued
the girl; "and on the morrow my mother would tell me
a hundred marvels. . . . But there is no need
to look on me with such cruel eyes, Ulenspiegel. Yes-
terday she told me that a fine seigneur, clothed in gray
and called Hilbert, desired to have me in marriage and
would come here to show himself to me. I answered
that I had no mind for any husband, neither ugly nor
handsome. By her maternal authority she forced me
to remain up to wait their coming; for she loses none of
her wits when it is a matter of her amours. We were
half undressed, ready to go to bed; I was sleeping upon
yonder chair. When they came within I did not wake.
Suddenly I felt someone embracing me and kissing me
on the neck. And by the light of the shining moon I
beheld a face as bright as the crests of the waves of the
sea in July, when it is like to thunder, and I heard one
saying to me in a whispering voice: 'I am Hilbert, thy
husband; be mine and I shall make thee rich.' The
face of him that spake had a smell as of fish. I repulsed
him; he would have taken me by force, but I had the
strength of ten men like him. Even so he tore my
chemise, wounded my face, and went on saying, 'Be mine,
I shall make thee rich.' 'Aye,' I said, 'like my mother,
from whom thou wilt take her last Hard.' Then he re-
doubled his violence, but could avail naught against me.
Then as he was uglier than a corpse, I gave him my nails
in his eyes so hard that he screamed for the pain and I
could break loose and come hither to Soetkin."

VOL.1. Q

226 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Katheline kept repeating:

"Nele is bad. Why hast thou gone so quickly,
Hanske, my darling?"

"Where wast thou, ill mother," said Soetkin, "while
they would have taken away thy child's honour?"

"Nele is bad," said Katheline. "I was with my
black lord, when the gray devil came to us, his face all
bloody, and said: 'Come away, lad: the house is a bad
house; the men in it would beat us to the death, and the
women have knives at their fingertips.' Then they
ran to their horses and disappeared in the mist. Nele
is bad!"

LXXXI

On the morrow, while they were drinking hot milk,
Soetkin said to Katheline:

"Thou seest that sorrow is driving me already out of
this world, wouldst thou drive me to flee from it through
thy damned witchcrafts?"

But Katheline kept saying:

"Nele is bad. Come back, Hanske, my darling."

On the next Wednesday the devils came back to-
gether. Since the Saturday Nele slept at the house of
the widow Van den Houte, saying that she could not
stay at Katheline's by reason of the presence of Ulen-
spiegel, a young bachelor.

Katheline received her black lord and his friend in
the keet, which is the wash house and the bakery ap-
purtenant to the main dwelling. And then they held
feast and revel with old wines and smoked ox tongues,
that were always there awaiting them. The black devil
said to Katheline:

"We have need," said he, "for an important task

And Lamme Goedzak 227

that is to be done, of a heavy sum of money; give us
what thou canst."

Katheline, being unwilling to give more than a florin,
they threatened to kill her. But they let her off with
two gold carolus and seven deniers.

"Come no more on the Saturday," she told them.
"Ulenspiegel knows that day and will await you with
weapons to kill you, and I should die after you."

"We shall come next Tuesday," said they.

On that day Ulenspiegel and Nele slept without fear
of the devils, for they believed that they came only on
Saturday.

Katheline rose and went into the keet, to see if her
friends had come.

She was sorely impatient, because since she had seen
Hanske again, her madness had greatly lessened, for
folk said it was love-madness.

Not seeing them, she was brokenhearted; when she
heard the sea eagle cry from the direction of Sluys,
in the country, she went towards the cry. Going in
the meadow at the foot of a dyke of faggots and green
sod, she heard from the other side of the dyke the two
devils talking together. One said:

"I shall have the half of it."

The other replied :

"Thou shalt have none of it; what is Katheline's is
mine."

Then they cursed and blasphemed like madmen,
disputing between them who should have to himself
alone the money and the loves of Katheline and Nele
together. Transfixed with fear, daring neither to speak
nor budge, Katheline presently heard them fighting,
then one of them saying:

228 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"This steel is cold." Then a rattling breath and the
fall of a heavy body.

Affrighted, she walked back to her cottage. At two
o'clock in the night she heard again, but now in her
garden, the cry of the sea eagle. She went to open
and saw before the door her lover devil alone. She
asked him:

"What hast thou done with the other?"

"He will not come again," he answered.

Then embracing her he caressed her. And he seemed
to her colder than usual. And Katheline's spirit was
well awaked. When he went away, he asked her for
twenty florins, all she had: she gave him seventeen.

On the morrow, being curious, she went along by the
dyke; but she saw nothing, save at a spot as big as a
man's coffin blood upon the turf that was less solid
under foot. But that night rain washed away the
blood.

The next Wednesday she heard the cry of the sea
eagle once more in her garden.

LXXXII

Each time he needed money to pay their share of
expenses at Katheline's Ulenspiegel went by night to
lift the stone from the hole dug beside the well, and
took out a carolus.

One night the three women were spinning; Ulen-
spiegel was carving with his knife a box that the bailiff
had entrusted to him, and on which he was skilfully
graving a goodly chase, with a pack of Hainaut dogs,
mastiffs from Crete, the which are most savage beasts;
Brabant dogs going in pairs and called ear biters, and

And Lamme Goedzak 229

other dogs, straight-legged, crook-legged, short-legged,
and greyhounds.

Katheline being present, Nele asked Soetkin if she
had hidden her treasure well. The widow answered
without any misgivings that it could not be better than
in the side of the well wall.

Towards the midnight, being Thursday, Soetkin
was awakened by Bibulus Schnouffius, barking very
sharply, but not for long. Deeming that it was some
false alarm, she went to sleep again.

Friday morning, early, Soetkin and Ulenspiegel,
having risen, did not see Katheline as usual in the
kitchen, nor the fire lit, nor the milk boiling on the
fire. They were dumbfounded and looked to see if
she was not perchance in the garden. They saw her
there, though it was misty rain, dishevelled, in her
body linen all soaked and chilled, but not daring to
enter.

Ulenspiegel, going to her, said:

"What dost thou there, half naked, when it rains?"

"Ah," she said, "aye, aye, a great portent!"

And she showed the dog with his throat cut and
lying stiff.

Ulenspiegel thought at once of the treasure; he ran
to it. The hole was empty and the earth strewed
far about.

Leaping on Katheline and beating her:

"Where are the carolusr" he said.

"Aye, aye, a great portent!" replied Katheline.

Nele, defending her mother, cried out:

"Mercy and pity, Ulenspiegel!"

He ceased to strike. Soetkin then showed herself
and asked what was the matter.

230 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Ulenspiegel showed her the dog killed and the hole
empty. Soetkin went white and said:

"Thou dost smite me cruelly, Lord God. My
poor feet!"

And she said that because of the agony she had in
them and the torment borne in vain for the gold caro-
lus. Nele, seeing Soetkin so gentle, fell in despair and
wept; Katheline, waving a piece of parchment, said:

"Aye, a great portent. Last night he came, kindly
and goodly. No longer was there on his face that
livid glow that gave me so much affright. He spoke
to me with a great tenderness. I was ravished with
joy, my heart melted within me. He said to me,
'Now I am rich, and will before long bring thee a
thousand florins.' 'Aye,' said I, 'I am more glad for
thy sake than for mine, Hanske, my darling.' 'But
hast thou not here,' he asked, 'some other person thou
lovest and whom I might make rich?' 'Nay,' I re-
plied, 'those that be here have no need of thee.' 'Thou
art proud,' said he, 'are then Soetkin and Ulenspiegel
rich?' 'They live with no help from their neigh-
bours,' I replied. 'In spite of the confiscation?' said
he. To which I answered that you had endured the
torture rather than allow your money to be taken. 'I
was not without knowledge of that,' said he. And
he began, laughing quiet and low, to jeer at the bailiff
and the sheriffs, for that they had not been able to
make you confess. Then I laughed equally. 'They
had not been so silly,' said he, 'as to hide their treasure
in their house.' I laughed. 'Nor in the cellar, here.'
'No, no,' said I. 'Nor in the garden?' I made no
reply. 'Ah,' said he, 'it would be too much of an
imprudence.' 'Not much,' said I, 'for neither the

And Lamme Goedzak 231

water nor the wall will speak.' And he continued to
laugh.

"Last night he went away sooner than usual, after
giving me a powder with which, said he, I could go to
the finest of sabbaths. I brought him, in my linen,
to the garden gate, and I was all overcome with sleep.
I went, as he had said, to the sabbath, and came back
only at daybreak, wrhen I found myself here, and saw
the dog dead and the hole empty. That is a very heavy
blow for me, who loved him so tenderly and gave
him my soul. But you shall have all I have, and I shall
work with my feet and my hands to maintain you."

"I am the corn under the millstone: God and a
robber devil strike me at the same time," said Soetkin.

"Robber, do not say so," rejoined Katheline; "he
is a devil, a devil. And for proof, I will show you the
parchment he left in the yard; there is written upon
it: 'Never forget to do my service. In thrice two
weeks and five days I shall return thee the twofold
of the treasure. Have no doubt, else thou shalt die.'
And he will keep his word, I am convinced and sure."

"Poor witless one!" said Soetkin.

And that was her last word of reproach.

LXXXIII

The two weeks having thrice passed by and the five
days as well, the lover devil never came back. And
still Katheline lived without despairing of it.

Soetkin, never working now, remained continually
in front of the fire, coughing f and bent. Nele gave
her the best and most fragrant herbs: but no remedy
had power upon her. Ulenspiegel never left the

232 The Legend of U lens pie gel

cottage, fearing that Soetkin might die while he was
abroad.

Then it came that the widow could neither eat nor
drinkf without vomiting. The barber surgeon came and
bled her; the blood being taken from her, she was so weak
that she could not leave her stool. At length, withered
up with sorrow and pain, she said one evening:

"Claes, my husband! Thyl, my son! I thank thee,
God who takest me away!"

And she died on a sigh.

Katheline not daring to watch by her, Ulenspiegel
and Nele did it together, and all night long they prayed
for the dead woman.

At dawn there entered by the open window a swallow.

Nele said:

"The bird of souls, 'tis a good omen: Soetkin is in
heaven."

The swallow flew round the chamber thrice and went
off with a cry.

Then there entered a second swallow, bigger and
blacker than the other. It circled around Ulenspiegel,
and he said:

"Father and Mother, the ashes beat against my
breast, I shall do what ye ask."

And the second went away crying shrill like the first.
The day showed brighter; Ulenspiegel saw thousands of
swallows skimming the meadows, and the sun arose.

And Soetkin was buried in the field of the poof.

LXXXIV

After Soetkin's death, Ulenspiegel, dreamy, sorrow-
ful, or angry, wandered about the kitchen, hearing

And Lamme Goedzak 233

nothing, taking what food or drink was given him,
without choosing. And he often rose at night.

In vain did Nele with her soft voice exhort him to
hope. Vainly did Katheline tell him that she knew
Soetkin was in paradise with Claes. To all Ulenspiegel
replied:

"The ashes are beating."

And he was as a man distraught, and Nele wept to
see him in this plight.

Meanwhile, the fishmonger remained in his house
alone like a parricide, and dared not go forth save by
night; for men and women, passing near him, hooted
him and called him murderer, and children fled before
him, for they had been told that he was the executioner.
He wandered alone and solitary, not daring to go
into any of the three taverns of Damme; for he was
pointed at in them, and if he merely remained standing
for a minute inside, the drinkers went away.

Hence it came that the loaesen wished not to see him
again, and if he presented himself, shut their door
to him. Then the fishmonger would offer a humble
remonstrance: they would reply that it was their right
and not their obligation to sell.

Tired of the struggle, the fishmonger used to go to
drink in 't Roode Falck, at the Red Falcon, a little
wine shop away from the town on the edge of the
Sluys Canal. There they served him; for they were
grubbing folk to whom any money was welcome. But
the baes of the Roode Valck never spoke a word to
him nor did his wife. There were two children and a
dog in the house: when the fishmonger would have
caressed the children, they ran away; and when he
called the dog, the dog tried to bite him.

234 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

One evening Ulenspiegel stood on the threshold:
Mathyssens the cooper, seeing him so pensive and
dreaming, said to him:

"You should work with your hands and forget this
sad blow."

Ulenspiegel answered:

"The ashes of Claes beat against my breast."

"Ah," said Mathyssens, "he leads a sadder life than
thou, the wretched fishmonger. No man speaks to
him, and everyone flees from him, so that he is driven,
to go among the poor ragamuffins at the Roode Valck
to drink his quart of bruinbier by himself. 'Tis a
sore punishment."

"The ashes beat!" said Ulenspiegel again.

That same evening, while the clock on Notre Dame
was striking the ninth hour, Ulenspiegel went towards
the Roode Falck, and seeing that the fishmonger was
not there, he went wandering under the trees on the
edge of the canal. The moon was shining bright and
clear.

He saw the murderer coming.

As he passed before him, he could see him near at
hand, and heard him say, speaking aloud like those
who live alone:

"Where have they hidden these carolus?"

"Where the devil has found them," answered
Ulenspiegel striking him full in the face with his fist.

"Alas!" said the fishmonger, "I know thee who thou
art, thou art the son. Have pity, I am old and weak.
What I did, it was not for hate, but to serve His Maj-
esty. Deign to pardon me. I wilt give thee back the
furniture I purchased, thou wilt not have to pay
me one single patard for it. Is not that enough?

And Lamme Goedzak 235

I paid seven gold florins for them. Thou shalt have
all and a demi-florin to boot, for I am not rich, it
must not be imagined."

And he would have gone on his knees before him.

Ulenspiegel, seeing him so ugly, so trembling, and so
cowardly and mean, flung him into the canal.

And he went away.

LXXXV

On the doomfires smoked the fat of the victims.
Ulenspiegel, thinking of Claes and Soetkin, wept in
solitude.

One night he went to find Katheline and ask her for
a remedy and for vengeance.

She was alone with Nele sewing beside the lamp. At
the noise he made on coming within, Katheline dully
lifted up her head like a woman awakened out of a
heavy slumber.

He said to her:

"The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast; I would
fain save the land of Flanders. I asked the Great
God of heaven and earth, but He gave me no answer."

Katheline said:

"The Great God could not hear you: first you must
address yourself to the spirits of the elemental world,
which being of double nature, celestial and terres-
trial, receive the complaints of poor humankind, and
transmit them to the angels, which after bear them to
the throne."

"Help me," said he, "in my design; I will pay thee
with my blood if need be."

Replied Katheline:

"I will help thee, if a girl that loveth thee would

236 The Legend of V lens pie gel

bring thee with her to the sabbath of the Spirits of the
Springtide, which is the Easter of the Sap."

"I will bring him," said Nele.

Katheline poured into a crystal goblet a grayish
coloured mixture of which she gave them both to
drink; with this mixture she rubbed their temples,
their nostrils, palms of the hand and wrists, made them
swallow a pinch of a white powder, and bade them
look at the other, that their two souls might become
as but one.

Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and the kind soft eyes
of the girl lit up a great fire within him; then by reason
of the mixture he felt as it might have been a thousand
crabs tearing at him.

Then they took off their clothes, and they were
beautiful thus in the lamplight, he in his proud strength,
she in her delicious grace; but they could not see one
another, for already they were as though in sleep.
Then Katheline laid Nele's neck upon Ulenspiegel's
arm, and taking his hand put it upon the maiden's
heart.

And they remained thus naked and lying one beside
the other.

It seemed to them twain that their bodies touching
each other were of fire soft as the sun in the month of
roses.

They rose up, as they told later, mounted upon the
window sill, launched themselves thence into void
space, and felt the air bear them up as the water bears
the ships.

Then they perceived nothing any more, neither the
earth where poor men were sleeping, nor the heavens
where but now the clouds were rolling beneath their

And Lamme Goedzak 237

feet. And they set their feet on Sirius, the Cold Star.
Then from there they were cast upon the pole.

There they saw, not without fear, a naked giant,
the Giant Winter, with tawny hair, seated upon ice
mounds and against a wall of ice. In shallow pools
bears and seals were moving hither and thither, a
bellowing flock, all about him. In a hoarse voice, he
called up hail and snow and cold floods and gray clouds
and red and foul-smelling fogs, and the winds, among
which the bitter north wind hath the strongest blast.
And all raged together at once in this deadly place.

Smiling upon these horrors, the giant was lying upon
a bed of flowers faded by his hand, upon leaves withered
at his breath. Then leaning over and scratching the
earth with his nails, biting it with his teeth, he delved a
hole to seek for the heart of the earth; to devour it, and
also to put black coal in the place where shady forests
were, straw where the corn was, sand in the room of the
fertile earth. But the heart of the earth being of fire,
he dared not touch it and recoiled abashed and afraid.

He was throned like a king, draining his cup of oil,
in the midst of his bears and his seals, and of the skele-
ton bones of all those whom he had killed upon the sea,
upon land, and in the cottages of poor folk. He listened
with delight to the roaring of the bears, the bellowing of
the seals, and the dry rattling of the bones of the skele-
tons of men and beasts under the claws of vultures and
ravens seeking a last rag of flesh on them, and the
sound of ice lumps dashed one against the other by
the gloomy water.

And the voice of the giant was like the roar of hurri-
canes, the clamour of wintry storms, and the wind
howling in chimneys.

238 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"I am acold and am afeard," said Ulenspiegel.

"He hath no power against spirits," answered Nele.

Suddenly there was a great stir among the seals,
which dashed in haste into the water, the bears, which
laying their ears flat with fright, roared lamentably,
and the ravens, which lost themselves in the clouds
with agonized croakings.

And lo, Nele and Ulenspiegel heard the dull thudding
blows of a ram upon the wall of ice that served as a
support to the Giant Winter. And the wall split and
cracked and shook to and fro on its foundations.

But the Giant Winter heard nothing, and he went on
howling and shouting in glee, filling and draining his
cup of oil; and he went on searching for the heart of the
earth to freeze it, and not daring to lay hold of it.

Meantime, the blows reechoed louder and harder,
and the wall cracked more and more, and the rain of
icicles flying in splintered pieces ceased not to fall about
him.

And the bears roared lamentably and without ceas-
ing, and the seals complained in the leaden gloomy
water.

The wall crumbled and fell, and it became light in the
sky; a man descended therefrom, naked and beautiful,
leaning one hand upon a golden axe. And this man
was Lucifer, King Springtide.

When the giant beheld him, he flung far away his
cup of oil, and implored him not to slay him.

And at the warm breath of King Springtide, the
Giant Winter lost all strength. Then the king took
chains of diamonds, bound him with these, and tied
him to the pole.

Then staying, he uttered a cry, but a tender, amorous

And Lamme Goedzak 239

cry. And from the sky came down a blonde woman,
naked and beautiful. Placing herself beside the king,
she said to him:

"Thou art my vanquisher, mighty man."

He made answer:

"If thou art an-hungered, eat; if thou art athirst,
drink; if thou art afraid, come close to me: I am thy
male and thy mate."

"I am," said she, "hungry and athirst only for thee."

The king shouted yet again seven times terribly.
And there was a mighty din of thunder and lightning,
and behind him there took shape a canopy of suns
and of stars. And the twain sat them down upon
thrones.

Then the king and the woman, without a movement
of their noble faces, and without a gesture impairing
their might and their calm majesty, cried aloud.

At these cries there was an undulating movement
in the earth, the hard stone and the ice floes. And
Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a noise such as might be
made by gigantic birds seeking to break the shell of
enormous eggs with blows of their beak.

And in this huge movement of the earth which rose
and fell like the waves of the sea there were shapes like
the shape of an egg.

Suddenly from everywhere came forth trees with
their dry branches dovetailed and interlocked to-
gether, while their boles moved, swaying like drunken
men. Then they drew apart, leaving between them a
huge void space. From the stirring soil came forth
the genii of the earth; from the deeps of the forest the
woodland spirits; from the sea near by the genii of the
water.

240 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Ulenspiegel and Nele saw there the dwarfs that are
the wardens of treasure, hunchbacked, hairy, clumsy-
foot, ugly and grinning, princes of the stones, men of
the woods living like trees, and, by way of mouth and
stomach, having a tuft of roots at the lower part of their
face, thus to suck up their food from the bosom of the
earth; the emperors of mines, who cannot speak, have
neither heart nor entrails, and move like bright au-
tomatons. There, too, were dwarfs of flesh and bone,
with lizard tails, toads' heads, and lantern for head-
gear, who leap by night upon the shoulders of drunken
men afoot or timid travellers, leap down again and
waving their lantern, lead into pools and bogholes the
poor devils who imagine that this lantern is the candle
burning in their homes.

There, too, were the flower-maidens, flowers of femi-
nine strength and haleness, naked and not blushing,
proud of their beauty, having for their only cloak their
hair.

Their eyes shone with the wet lustre of mother of
pearl in water; the flesh of their bodies was firm, white,
and gilded by the light; from their red mouths partly
open came a breath more sweet and fragrant than
jasmine.

These are they that wander by eventide in parks and
gardens, or in the deeps of the woods, in shady bridle
ways, amorous and seeking some human soul to enjoy
it. So soon as passeth before them a young man and
a young maid, they seek to slay the maid, but when
they cannot, they breathe into the sweetling, still re-
luctant, desires of love so that she may yield herself to
the lover; for then the flower-maiden hath half of the
kisses.

And Lamme Goedzak 241

"Ye see but the appearance of it," answered Ulen-
spiegel, "it is wine and not blood."

"We will broach thy belly, then!"

"I would be the only one to drain it," replied Ulen-
spiegel.

"Thou art mocking us."

"He that beats the case will hear the drum," an-
swered Ulenspiegel.

And the embroidered banners of the Roman Catholic
processions floated from the masts of the ships. And
clad in velvet, in brocade, in silk, in cloth of gold and
of silver, such as abbots wear at solemn masses, bearing
mitre and crozier, drinking the monks' wine, the
Beggars kept guard on their ships.

And it was a strange sight to behold appearing from
out of these rich vestments those coarse hands that
held arquebus or arbalest, halberd or pike, and all
men of hard physiognomy, girt about with pistols and
cutlasses gleaming in the sun, and drinking from
golden chalices the abbots' wine that had become the
wine of liberty.

And they sang and they shouted: "Long live the
Beggar!" and thus they scoured the ocean and the
Scheldt.

VIII

At this time the Beggars, among whom were Lamme
and Ulenspiegel, took Gorcum. And they were com-
manded by Captain Marin: this Marin, who had been
a workman on the dykes, disported himself with great
haughtiness and sufficiency, and signed with Gaspard
Turc, the defender of Gorcum, a capitulation whereby
Turc, the monks, burgesses, and soldiers shut up in the

VOL.1. R

242 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

citadel were to come forth freely, bullet in mouth,
musket on shoulder, with all that they could carry,
save that the goods of the Church should be left to the
assailants.

But Captain Marin, upon an order from Messire
de Lumey, held the thirteen monks as prisoners, and
let the soldiers and the citizens go free.

And Ulenspiegel said:

"The wor 1 of a soldier should be a word of gold.
Why doth he fail of his?"

An ancient Beggar made answer to Ulenspiegel:

"The monks are sons of Satan, the leprosy of nations,
the shame of countries. Since the coming of the Duke
of Alba, these fellows lifted up their noses high in
Gorcum. There is among them one, the priest Nicolas,
prouder than a peacock and fiercer than a tiger. Every
time he passed in the street with his pyx in which
was his host made with dog's fat, he would look with
eyes full of fury at the houses from which the women
did not come and kneel, and would denounce to the
judge all that did not bend the knee before his idol
of dough and gilded brass. The other monks imi-
tated him. That was the cause of many great oppres-
sions, burnings, and cruel punishments in the town
of Gorcum. Captain Marin does well to keep prisoner
the monks who would else go off with their likes into
villages, burgs, towns, and townlets, to preach against
us, stirring up the populace and causing the poor reform-
ers to be burned. Mastiffs are put on the chain until
they die: to the chain with the monks; to the chain
with the bloed-honden, the duke's blood-hounds; to
the cage with the butchers. Long live the Beggar!"

"But," said Ulenspiegel, "Monseigneur d'Orange,

And Lamme Goedzak 243

our prince of liberty, wills that we should respect,
among those who surrender, the property of individuals
and freedom of conscience."

The ancient Beggars replied:

"The admiral wills it not for the monks: he is master;
he took Briele. To the cage with the monks!" «•

"Word of a soldier, word of gold! why does he
fail of it?" answered Ulenspiegel. "The monks kept
in prison suffer a thousand insults."

"The ashes beat no longer upon thy heart," said
they: "a hundred thousand families, in consequence
of the edicts, have taken over yonder, to the north-
west, to the land of England, the trades, the industry,
the wealth of our country; bemoan then those that
wrought our ruin! Under the Emperor Charles the
Fifth, Butcher the First, under this one, the king of
Blood, Butcher the Second, one hundred and eighteen
thousand persons have perished by execution. Who
carried the taper of the obsequies in murder and in
tears? Monks and soldiers of Spain. Dost thou not
hear the souls of the dead lamenting?"

"The ashes beat upon my heart," said Ulenspiegel.
"Word of a soldier, 'tis word of gold."

"Who then," said they, "would by excommunication
have put the country under the ban of all nations?
Who would have armed against us, had it been possible,
earth and sky, God and the devil, and their serried
ranks of saints, both male and female? Who made the
sacred host bleed with the blood of an ox, who made
wooden statues weep? Who had the De Profundis
sung in the land of our fathers, if not this accursed
clergy, these hordes of lazy monks, in order that they
might keep their riches, their influence over idol

244 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

worshippers, and reign over the poor country by ruin,
blood, and fire. To the cage with the wolves that rush
upon men on earth; to the cage with the hyaenas!
Long live the Beggar!"

"Word of a soldier, word of gold," said Ulenspiegel.

The next day a message came from Messire de
Lumey, with orders to transfer from Gorcum to Briele,
where the admiral was, the nineteen monks that were
prisoners.

"They will be hanged," said Captain Marin to
Ulenspiegel.

"Not while I am alive," replied he.

"My son," said Lamme, "speak not thus to Messire
de Lumey. He is fierce, and will hang thee with them
without mercy."

"I shall speak according to the truth," replied Ulen-
spiegel; "word of a soldier, word of gold."

"If thou canst save them," said Marin, "take their
boat to Briele. Take with thee Rochus the pilot and
thy friend Lamme if thou wilt."

"I do wish it," answered Ulenspiegel.

The boat was moored at the Green quay; the nine-
teen monks entered into it; Rochus the timid was set
at the helm; Ulenspiegel and Lamme, well armed, took
their place at the prow of the ship. Certain rascal
troopers that had come among the Beggars for pillage
were beside the monks, who were hungry. Ulenspiegel
gave them drink and food. "That one is going to turn
traitor!" said the rascal troopers. The nineteen monks,
seated amidships, were all gaping and shivering, though
it was July, and the sun was bright and hot, and a gen-
tle breeze filled out the sails of the ship as she glided
massive and bulging over the green waves.

And Lamme Goedzak 245

"I know thee, witches* shoot,'* added the King,
"and thee too, sprout of the coalman; but having by
the power of spells achieved the deed of penetrating
to this laboratory of Nature, why have ye now your
beaks locked like capons stuffed with crumb?"

Nele trembled, looking at the terrible demon; but
Ulenspiegel, recovering his manly hardihood, replied:

"The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart. Divine
Highness, death goeth throughout the land of Flanders,
mowing down, in the Pope's name, the strongest men,
the sweetest women; her privileges are destroyed, her
charters abolished, famine gnaweth her, her weavers
and cloth merchants leave her to go to the foreigner
seeking freedom for their work. She will die soon if no
one comes to her help. Highness, I am but a poor mean
fellow come into the world like any other, who have lived
as I could, imperfect, limited, ignorant, not virtuous,
in no wise chaste or deserving of any favour human or
divine. But Soetkin died of the effects of the torture
and her grief, but Claes burned in a terrible fire, and
I was minded to avenge them, and did so once; I was
minded also to see this poor soil happier, this poor soil
in which their bones are sown, and I asked God for
the death of the persecutors, but he did not hearken
to me nor heed me. Weary and sick of complaints,
I evoked thee by the potency of Katheline's spell,
and we come, I and my trembling she-comrade, to
thy feet, to ask you, Divine Highnesses, to save this
poor earth."

The king and his spouse replied together:

"Through war and through fire
Through death, through the sword.
Seek the Seven.

246 The Legend of U lens pie gel

"In death and blood
In ruin and tears,
Find the Seven.

"Foul, cruel, bad, deformed,
Mere Scourge of the poor earth.
Burn the Seven.

"Wait, hear and see!
Say, wretch, art thou not glad ?
Find the Seven."

And all the spirits fell to chanting in unison:

"In death and blood,
In ruin and tears
Find the Seven.

"Wait, hear and see!
Say, wretch, art thou not glad ?
Find the Seven."

"But," said Ulenspiegel, "Highness, and ye, spirits,
I. understand not your talk. Ye make a mock of me,
sans doubt."

But without heeding him they said:

"When the North
Shall kiss the West
Ruin shall end;
Find thou the Seven
The Girdle find!"

And that with so tremendous a chorus and so
terrifically loud, strong, and sonorous that the earth
trembled and the heavens shivered. And the birds
whistling, the owls bubbling, the sparrows twittering in

And Lamme Goedzak 247

affright, the sea eagles complaining, all flew round
aghast. And the beasts of the earth, lions, serpents,
bears, stags, bucks, wolves, dogs, and cats roared,
hissed, belled, howled, barked, and mewed terribly.
And the spirits chanted:

"Wait, hear and see,
Love thou the Seven
The Girdle love."

And the cocks crowed, and all the spirits vanished
save one malicious emperor of mines who seizing
Ulenspiegel and Nele each by an arm, hurled them
brutally out into the void.

They found themselves lying beside each other, as
though for sleep, and they shivered in the keen wind
of the morning.

And Ulenspiegel saw the delicious body of Nele all
gilded in the sun that was then rising.

n

BOOK II

I

ON THAT morning, which was in September,
Ulenspiegel took his stick, three florins that
Katheline gave him, a piece of pig's liver, and
a slice of bread, and set out from Damme, going in
the direction of Antwerp, seeking the Seven. Nele
was sleeping.

As he journeyed, he was followed by a dog that came
sniffing about him because of the liver, and leaped up on
his legs. Ulenspiegel would have driven him away,
and seeing that the dog was determined to follow him,
addressed this discourse to him:

"Doggie, my dear, thou art but ill advised to leave
the home where good messes await thee, delicious
scraps, and bones full of marrow, to follow upon the
road of adventure a vagabond fellow who mayhap will
not always have even roots to give thee for thy food.
Be guided by me, dog of no prudence, and go back to
thine own baes. Avoid the rains, snows, hails, drizzles,
mists, hoarfrosts, and other lean fare that fall upon
the wanderer's back. Stay in the corner of the hearth,
keeping thyself snug and warm, rolled up into a ball
before the gay fire; leave me to walk in the mud, the
dust, the cold, and the heat, roasted to-day, to-morrow
frozen, feasted on Friday, famished on Sunday. Thou
wilt do a sensible thing if thou dost return whence
thou comest, dogling of small experience."

251

252 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

The animal did not appear to hear Ulenspiegel at
all. Wagging his tail and leaping all he could, he went
barking for appetite's sake. Ulenspiegel thought it was
for friendliness, but he never thought of the liver he
carried in his satchel.

He walked on; the dog followed him. Having thus
gone more than a league, they saw in the road a cart
drawn by an ass hanging its head. Upon a bank on the
roadside there sat, between two clumps of thistles, a
big man holding in one hand a knuckle bone of mutton,
which he was gnawing, and in the other a flask whose
juice he was draining. When he was not in the act
of eating or of drinking, he whimpered and wept.

Ulenspiegel having stopped, the dog stopped like-
wise. Smelling the mutton and the liver, he climbed
up the bank. There, sitting on his hindquarters
beside the man, he pawed his doublet, that he might
share the feast, but the man, repulsing him with an
elbow and holding the knuckle bone high in air, groaned
lamentably. The dog imitated him for greedy longing.
The ass, cross to find himself harnessed to the cart, and
so unable to reach the thistles, began to bray.

"What wouldst thou have, Jan?" asked the man
of his ass.

"Nothing," answered Ulenspiegel, "except that he
would fain breakfast on these thistles that flourish
beside you as they grow on the roodscreen of Tessen-
derloo beside and above Monseigneur Christ. That
dog, too, would not be grieved to effect a wedlock of jaws
with the bone you have there; in the meanwhile, I
am going to give him the liver I have here."

The liver having been devoured by the dog, the man
looked at his bone picked it again to have the meat

And Lamme Goedzak 253

that still remained on it, then he gave it thus denuded
of flesh to the dog, who, setting his forepaws on it,
began to crunch it on the grass.

Then the man looked at Ulenspiegel.

The latter knew Lamme Goedzak, of Damme.

"Lamme," he said, "what dost thou here drink-
ing, eating, and whimpering? What trooper can have
rudely dressed down your ears?"

"Alas! my wife!" said Lamme.

He was on the point of emptying his wine flask, when
Ulenspiegel put his hand on his arm.

" Do not drink in this fashion," said he, " for drinking
precipitately doth no benefit save to the kidneys.
It were better if this belonged to him that hath no
bottle."

"You say well," said Lamme, "but will you drink
any better?" And he proffered him the flask.

Ulenspiegel took it, lifted up his elbow, then, re-
turning the flask:

"Call me Spaniard," said he, "if there is enough
left to moisten a sparrow."

Lamme looked at the flask, and without ceasing to
whine, groped in his satchel, pulled out another flask
and a piece of sausage which he began to cut in slices
and chew in melancholy fashion.

"Dost thou never stop eating, Lamme?" asked Ulen-
spiegel.

"Often, my son," replied Lamme, "but it is to
drive away my mournful thoughts. Where art thou,
wife?" said he, wiping away a tear.

And he cut off ten slices of sausage.

"Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "do not eat so fast and
without a thought of compassion for the poor pilgrim."

254 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Lamme, still weeping, gave him four slices and Ulen-
spiegel eating them was moved and softened by their
delicious flavour.

But Lamme, weeping and eating without ceasing,
said:

"My wife, my good, dear wife! How sweet and
shapely she was of her body, light as a butterfly, bright
and swift as lightning, singing like a lark! Too well,
however, loved she to clothe herself with fine adorn-
ments. Alas! they became her so well! But the
flowers themselves have also a rich array. If you had
seen, my son, her little hands so light for caressing,
never would you have allowed them to touch pan or
pot. The kitchen fire would have blackened their colour
that was clear and bright as the day itself. And what
eyes! I melted with love merely to look at them. —
Take a draught of wine. I shall drink after you.
Ah! if only she be not dead! Thyl, I kept all the work
of my house for myself, so as to spare her the smallest
task; I swept the house, I made the nuptial bed on
which she lay down at night weary with idleness and
comfort; I washed the dishes and the linen which I
ironed myself. — Eat, Thyl, it is from Ghent, this
sausage. — Often having gone out a walking she came
back late for dinner, but it was so great a joy for
me to see her that I never ventured to scold her,
happy when, pouting, she did not turn her back to
me at night. I have lost all. — Drink of this wine,
it is a Brussels vintage, made in the same way as
Burgundy."

"Why did she go away?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"Do 1 know that, I?" went on Lamme Goedzak.
"Where are the days when ! used to go to her home.

And Lamme Goedzak 255

hoping to marry her, and she fled from me for love or
fear? If she had her arms bare, lovely round white
arms, and saw me looking at them, all at once she would
pull down her sleeves over them. At other times she
would give herself to my caresses, and I could kiss her
lovely eyes, which she shut for me, and the wide firm
nape of her neck; then she would shiver, utter little
cries, and throwing her head back, hit my nose with
it. And she would laugh when I said 'oh!' and I
would beat her in lover fashion, and there was nothing
between us but games and laughter. — Thyl, is there
any wine still left in the flask?"
"Aye," said Ulenspiegel.

Lamme drank and went on with his discourse:
"At other times, more loving, she would fling both
arms about my neck and say to me, 'How handsome
you are!' and she would kiss me gamesomely and a
hundred times together, on my cheek or my forehead
but never on the mouth, and when I asked her whence
came this great reserve in so extended a license, she
went running to take from a tankard on a chest a
doll clad in silk and pearls, and said, shaking and dan-
dling it: 'I don't want this.' Doubtless her mother,
to keep her virtue safe, had told her that babies are
made by the mouth. Ah! sweet moments! tender
caresses! Thyl, see if you cannot find a little ham in
the pouch of this bag."

"Half of one," replied Ulenspiegel, giving it to
Lamme, who ate it all every bit.

Ulenspiegel watched him doing so, and said:
"This ham doth me great good in my stomach."
"To me also," said Lamme, picking his teeth with
his nails. "But I shall never again see my darling;

256 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

she has fled from Damme; would you seek her with me
in my cart ? "

"I will," replied Ulenspiegel.

"But," said Lamme, "is there nothing at all left in
the flask?"

"Nothing at all," answered Ulenspiegel.

And they got up into the cart, drawn by the donkey,
who sounded in melancholy wise the bray of departure.

As for the dog, he had gone off, well fed and filled,
without saying a word.

II

While the cart rolled along upon a dyke between the
canal and a pond, Ulenspiegel, in deep thought, caressed
the ashes of Claes on his breast. He asked himself if
the vision was false or true, if those spirits had mocked
him or if they had by riddles told him what in good sooth
he must find to make the land of his fathers happy.

Vainly groping for the interpretation, he could not
discover what the Seven and the Girdle meant.

Thinking upon the dead Emperor, the living King,
the Lady Governor, the Pope of Rome, the Grand
Inquisitor, the General of the Jesuits, he found in these
six great tormentors of the country whom he would
gladly have burned alive. But he thought it was not
they, for they were too easy to burn, so the Seven
must be elsewhere.

And in his own mind he was always repeating:

When the North
Shall kiss the West,
Ruin shall end,
Love thou the Seven,
The Girdle Love.

And Lamme Goedzak 257

"Alas!" said he to himself, "in death, blood, and
tears, find seven, burn seven, love seven! My poor wit
fails, for who then burns what he loves?"

The cart having already swallowed up a long stretch
of the road, they heard a noise of feet on the sandy
earth, and a voice singing:

"Good travellers, saw you him, I pray,
My wild lost lover gone astray?
He roams at random here and there,
Saw you him, pray?

"As lamb by eagle of the air
He bore my heedless heart away:
A man whose face shows little hair.
Saw you him, pray?

''When he is met, that Nele with care
And toil is very weary, say,
Beloved Thyl, where dost delay?
Saw you him, pray?

e< Does he not know the dove's despair
What time her mate abroad doth stay?
Much more a faithful heart must bear.
Saw you him, pray?"

Ulenspiegel smote upon Lamme's paunch and said
to him:

"Hold thy breath, big belly."

"Alas!" answered Lamme, "that is a hard thing for
a man of my corpulence!"

But Ulenspiegel, paying him no heed, hid behind the
VOL.I. s

258 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

tilt of the cart, and imitating the voice of a wheezy
fellow lilting after drinking, he sang:

"Thy wild lover I saw, I say,
Within an old worm-eaten shay
Beside a glutton one fine day,
I saw, I say."

"Thyl," said Lamme, "thou hast an ill tongue this
morning."

Ulenspiegel, without listening to him, thrust his
head out through the opening of the tilt and said:

"Nele, do you not know me?"

She, seized with fear, weeping and laughing at the
same time, for her cheeks were all wet, said to him:

"I see you, nasty traitor!"

"Nele," said Ulenspiegel, "if you want to beat me
I have a yard stick in here. It is heavy to make the
strokes sink well in and knotty to make them leave
their mark."

"Thyl," said Nele, "art thou going towards the
Seven?"

"Aye," answered Ulenspiegel.

Nele was carrying a satchel that looked ready to
burst; it was so full.

"Thyl," she said, holding it up to him, "I thought
it was unwholesome for a man to travel without
taking with him a good fat goose, a ham, and Ghent
sausages. And you must eat this in remembrance of
me."

As Ulenspiegel was looking at Nele and not at all
thinking of taking the satchel, Lamme thrust out his
head through another hole in the canvas and said:

And Lamme Goedzak 259

" Forethinking damsel, if he does not accept, it is
but in forgetfulness; but give me that ham, give me
that goose, tender me those sausages; I shall keep them
for him."

"What," said Nele, "is this good moonface?"

"That," said Ulenspiegel, "is a victim of marriage,
who, devoured by sorrow, would wither away like an
apple in the oven, if he did not recuperate his strength
with constant nourishment."

"Thou hast said the truth, son," sighed Lamme.

The sun, which was shining strong, burned and
scorched Nele's head. She covered herself up with
her apron. Wishing to be alone with her, Ulenspiegel
said to Lamme:

"Seest thou that woman wandering yonder in the
meadow?"

"I see her," said Lamme.

"Dost thou recognize her?"

"Ah, me!" said Lamme, "could it be my wife?
She is not clad like a townswoman."

"Thou doubtest still, blind mole," said Ulenspiegel.

"If it were not she?" said Lamme.

"Thou wouldst lose nothing by going; on the left
there, towards the north, there is a kaberdoesje where
thou wilt find good bruinbier. We shall go thither to
join thee. And here is ham to salt thy natural thirst
withal."

Lamme, getting out of the cart, ran quickly towards
the woman that was in the meadow.

Ulenspiegel said to Nele:

"Why do you not come beside me?"

Then, helping her to get up into the cart, he made
her sit beside him, took the apron from about her head

260 The Legend of U lens pie gel

and the cloak from her shoulders: then giving her a
hundred kisses, he said:

"Whither wert thou going, my beloved?"

She answered no word, but she seemed all entranced
in ecstasy. And Ulenspiegel, transported even as she,
said to her:

"So thou art here, indeed! The sweetbriar roses
in the hedges have not the lovely redness of your fresh
skin. You are no queen, but let me make you a crown
of kisses. Darling arms, all soft, all rosy, that Love
himself made all on purpose for kissing! Ah, beloved
maid, will not my rugged man's hands wither that
shoulder? The light butterfly settles on the crimson
carnation, but can I rest on your dazzling whiteness
without withering it, clumsy lout that I am? God
is in his heaven, the king upon his throne, and the sun
is aloft, triumphing; but am I God, the king, or
sunlight, to be so near you? Oh, hair softer than flossy
silk! Nele, I strike, I rend, I tear to pieces! But
do not be afraid, my love. Thy darling little foot!
How comes it to be so white! Has it been bathed in
milk?"

She would fain have risen.

"What fearest thou?" said Ulenspiegel. "'Tis not the
sun that shineth on us and paints thee all in gold.
Lower not thine eyes. See in mine what a lovely
fire he lighteth there. Listen, beloved ; hear, my darling;
it is the silent hour of noon; the peasant is in his home
feeding on his soup, shall not we feed upon love?
Why have not I a thousand years to pluck one by
one on thy knees like a string of pearls from the
Indies!"

"Golden tongue!" said she.

And Lamme Goedzak 261

And Master Sun blazed through the white canvas
of the cart, and a lark sang above the clover, and Nele
drooped her head upon Ulenspiegel's shoulder.

Ill

Meanwhile Lamme came back sweating big drops
of perspiration, and puffing and blowing like a dolphin.

"Alas!" he said, "I was born under an ill star.
After I had to run hard to come up with that woman,
who was not my wife and who was old, I saw by her
face that she was full forty-five years of age, and by
her headdress that she had never been married. She
asked me tartly what I was coming to do among the
clover with my paunch.

"'I am looking for my wife, who has left me,' I
replied with all gentleness, 'and taking you for her, I
came hastening towards you.'

"At that word the old maid told me I had nothing to
do but to go back whence I had come, and that if my
wife had left me, she had done right, seeing that all
men were scoundrels, heretics, disloyal, poisoners,
deceiving poor maids despite even their ripe years,
and that anyhow she would make her dog eat me
if I did not make myself scarce as quickly as pos-
sible.

"I did so, though not without apprehension; for I
could see a huge mastiff lying growling at her feet.
When I had cleared the boundary of her field, I sat
down and to restore myself I bit into your piece of
ham you gave me. I was at that moment between
two patches of clover; suddenly I heard a noise be-
hind me, and turning round, I saw the old girl's big

262 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

mastiff, not threatening now, but wagging his tail
to and fro with amiability and appetite. It was my
ham he was sharp set against. So I gave him a few
little pieces, when his mistress came up, and she cried
out:

"'Seize the fellow! seize him, put your teeth in him,
my son!'

"And I started to run, and the big mastiff at my
stockings, and he took a piece of them and the flesh
with it. But being angered with the pain of this,
turning round on him I fetched him such a sour blow
of my stick on his front paws that I broke at least one
of them for him. He fell, crying out in his dog's
speech 'mercy,' which I accorded him. Meanwhile,
his mistress was throwing clods of earth at me for want
of stones. And I ran.

"Alas! is it not cruel and unjust that because a
girl had not enough beauty to find a man to marry
her, she should take revenge on poor innocent folk like
myself?

"I went away all melancholy to the kaberdoesje
that you had pointed out to me, hoping to find there
the bruinbier of consolation, were it but one quart or
half a dozen. But I was deceived, for when I went
within I saw a man and a woman and they fighting.
I asked them to be so good as to interrupt their battle
to give me a pot of bruinbier, were it one quart or half
a dozen; but the woman, a regular stokfisch, in a fury,
answered that if I did not be off from there as quickly
as possible she would make me swallow the sabot with
which she was beating her husband over the head.
And so, my friend, here I am, sweating sore and sore
wearied. Have you not anything to eat?"

And Lamme Goedzak 263

"Aye," said Ulenspiegel.
"At last!" said Lamme.

IV

Thus re-united, they went on their way together. The
donkey, laying back his ears, pulled the cart along.

"Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "here be we four food
comrades : the ass, the beast of the good God, feeding
on chance-found thistles along the meadows; thou,
good belly, seeking her that fled from thee; she, sweet
girl beloved, tender hearted, finding one that is not
worthy of her, I mean myself the fourth.

"Now, then, my children, courage! the leaves are
yellowing and the skies will be more gorgeous, for soon
will Master Sun go to rest amid the autumnal mists,
winter will come, the image and likeness of death,
covering with snowy shrouds those that sleep beneath
our feet, and I shall be trudging it for the happiness of
the land of our fathers. Poor dead ones; Soetkin who
didst die of grief; Claes that diedst in the fire; oak of
goodness and ivy of love, I, your seedling, I suffer
greatly and I shall avenge you, beloved ashes that beat
upon my breast."

Lamme said:

"We must not weep those that die for justice's sake."

But Ulenspiegel remained rapt in thought; all at
once he said:

"This, Nele, is the hour of farewell, for a long long
time, and never again, it may be, shall I look on thy
sweet face."

Nele, looking at him with her eyes gleaming like
stars:

"Why," said she, "why do you not leave this cart to

264 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

come with me into the forest where you would find
good and dainty things to eat; for I know the plants
and how to call the birds to me?"

"Damsel," said Lamme, "'tis ill done of thee to
seek to stop Ulenspiegel in the way, for he must look
for the Seven and help me to find my wife again."

"Not yet," said Nele; and she wept, laughing ten-
derly through her tears upon her friend Ulenspiegel.

He, seeing this, answered him:

"Your wife, you will always find her soon enough,
when you want to seek a new sorrow."

"Thyl," said Lamme, "wilt thou leave me thus
alone in my cart for this damsel? Thou dost not an-
swer and art thinking of the forest, where the Seven
are not, nor my wife, either. Let us rather seek her
along this stone paven road on which carts go so well
and handily."

"Lamme," said Ulenspiegel, "you have a full satchel
in the cart, you will not therefore die of hunger if you
go without me from here to Koelkerke, where I shall
join you again. You must be alone there, for there
you will know towards which point of the compass you
must direct yourself in order to find your wife again.
Listen and hearken. You will go at once with your
cart to Koelkerke, three leagues away, the cool church,
so named because like many others it is beaten upon
by the four winds all at once. Upon the spire there
is a vane shapen like a cock and swinging to all the
winds on its rusty hinges. It is the screeching of these
hinges that indicates to poor men that have lost their
lovers the way they must follow to find them again.
But first they must strike each wall seven times with
a hazel wand. If the hinges cry out when the wind

And Lamme Goedzak 265

blows from the north, that is the direction in which
you must go, but prudently, for the northern wind is
a wind of war; if from the south, go lightly thither,
it is a love wind; if from the east, run along full speed,
it is gaiety and light; if from the west, go softly, it is
the wind of rain and tears. Go, Lamme, go to Koel-
kerke, and wait for me there."

"I go thither," said Lamme.

And he set off in his cart.

While Lamme was trundling towards Koelkerke,
the wind, which was both high and warm, drove like
a flock of sheep in the sky the gray clouds drifting in
bands; the trees complained like the waves of a swelling
sea. Ulenspiegel and Nele were now a long while
in the forest alone together. Ulenspiegel was hungry,
and Nele looked for roots that were good to eat, and
found nothing but the kisses her friend gave her, and
acorns.

Ulenspiegel, having laid down snares, whistled to
call the birds down, in order to catch and cook any that
might come. A nightingale settled on a leafy branch
close to Nele; she did not catch it, for she wished to
leave it to sing; a warbler came, and she had pity on it,
because it was so pretty and proud in its air; then came
a lark, but Nele told it it would do better to fly away
into the heights of the sky and sing a hymn to Nature,
than to come stupidly to struggle on the murderous
point of a spit.

And she said the truth, for in the meantime
Ulenspiegel had lighted a clear fire and cut a wooden
spit that only awaited its victims.

But no more birds came now, except a few evil ravens
that croaked a long way up over their heads.

266 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

And so Ulenspiegel did not eat at all.

Now the time had come when Nele must go away
and return to Katheline. And she went weeping, and
Ulenspiegel from afar off watched her go.

But she came back, and flinging herself on his neck:

"I am going," she said.

Then she went a few steps, came back again, saying
once more:

"I am going."

And thus twenty times and more over and over.

Then she went indeed, and Ulenspiegel remained
alone. He set off then to go and find Lamme.

When he came up with him, he found him sitting
at the foot of the tower, with a great pot of bruinbier
between his legs and nibbling most melancholy-wise
at a hazel wand.

"Ulenspiegel," said he, "I think you but sent me
here that you might be alone with the damsel;
I smote as you bade me, seven times with the hazel
wand on each wall of the tower, and though the wind is
blowing like the devil, the hinges have not made a
sound."

"Without doubt, then, they must have been oiled,"
replied Ulenspiegel.

Then they went away in the direction of the Duchy
of Brabant.

King Philip, dark and gloomy, dabbled with paper
with no respite all day long, and even by night, and
scribbled over papers and parchments. To them he
confided the thoughts of his hard heart. Loving no
man in his life, knowing that no man loved him, fain

And Lamme Goedzak 267

to bear his immense empire alone, a dolorous Atlas,
he bowed beneath the burden. Phlegmatic and melan-
choly of temperament, his excessive toil devoured his
weak body. Detesting every bright or merry face,
he had conceived hatred for our country because of
its gaiety; for our traders because of their wealth;
for our nobles because of their free speech, frank
ways and manners, the sanguine mettlesomeness of
their gallant joviality. He knew, for he had been told,
that long before Cardinal de Cousa had indicted the
abuses of the Church and preached the need for re-
forms, the revolt against the Pope and the Romish
Church, having been manifested throughout our
country under different kinds of sect, was in every
head like boiling water in a tight shut kettle.

Obstinate and mulish, he thought that his will ought
to lie heavy on the whole world like the will of God;
he desired that our countries, little used to ways of
servile obedience, should bow beneath the old yoke
without obtaining any reform. He wanted his Holy
Mother the Catholic Church, Apostolic and Roman,
to be one, entire and universal with neither modi-
fication nor change, and with no other grounds for
wanting this except that he did want it so. Acting
in this like an unreasonable woman, tossing and turn-
ing by night on his bed as though a couch of thorns,
incessantly tormented by his thoughts.

"Yea, Master Saint Philip, yea, Lord God, were I
to be forced to make of the Low Countries a common
grave and throw into it all the inhabitants, they shall
come back to you, my blessed patron, and to you,
Madame Virgin Mary, and to you, all ye Saints of Para-
dise."

268 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

And he sought to do even as he said, and thus he
was more Roman than the Pope and more Catholic
than the councils.

And Ulenspiegel and Lamme, and the people of
Flanders and the Low Countries, full of anguish,
imagined that they could see from far within the gloomy
haunt of the Escurial, that crowned spider, with long
legs and open claws, spreading out his web to en-
tangle them around and suck the best of their heart's
blood.

Although the Papal Inquisition had, under the reign
of Charles, killed at the stake, by burying alive, and by
the rope, a hundred thousand Christians; though the
goods of the poor condemned folk had found their way
into the coffers of the Emperor and the King, as the
rain flows into the drain, Philip deemed that it was
insufficient; he imposed new bishops upon the country
and proposed to introduce into it the Spanish Inquisi-
tion.

And the town heralds everywhere read out to the
sound of trump and tambourine proclamations de-
creeing to all heretics, men and women and girls, death
by fire to those who did not abjure their error, by the
rope to those who should abjure. Women and girls
would be buried alive, and the executioner should
dance upon their bodies.

And the flame of resistance ran throughout the
whole land.

VI

The fifth of April, before Easter Day, the lords
Count Louis of Nassau, Culembourg, and Brederode,
the Drinking Hercules, entered with three hundred other

And Lamme Goedzak 269

gentlemen of birth into the Court of Brussels, to the
Duchess of Parma, the Lady Governor. Going in
ordered ranks of four, they went in this way up the
great stair of the palace.

Being in the chamber where Madame was they
presented to her a request in which they asked her
to seek to obtain from King Philip the rescinding
of the proclamations touching upon religion and also
of the Spanish Inquisition, declaring that within
our roused and discontented country there could
result from it only troubles, ruins, and universal
distress.

And this request was termed THE COMPROMISE.

Berlaymont, who later was so treacherous and so
cruel to the land of his fathers, was standing beside Her
Highness, and said to her, mocking at the poverty of
certain of the confederated nobles:

"Madame, fear nothing, they are nothing but
beggars."

Meaning thus that these nobles had ruined them-
selves in the king's service or else in trying to match
the Spanish lords by their sumptuous display.

To turn to scorn the speech of the Sieur de Berlay-
mont, the lords declared afterwards that they "held
it an honour to be esteemed and called beggars for the
king's service and the good of these lands."

They began to wear a gold medallion about their
neck, having the king's effigy on one side and on the
other two hands locked and passing through a beggar's
wallet, with these words: "Faithful to the king even
unto the beggar's wallet." They wore also in their
hats and bonnets little gold jewels in the shape of
beggars' bowls and beggars' hats.

270 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Meanwhile, Lamme was taking his paunch through-
out the whole town, looking for his wife and not finding
her.

VII

Ulenspiegel said to him one morning:

"Follow me: we are going to pay our respects to a
high, noble, powerful, and redoubted personage."

"Will he tell me where my wife is?" asked Lamme.

"If he knows," answered Ulenspiegel.

And they went to call on Brederode, the Drinking
Hercules. He was in the courtyard of his house.

"What wouldst thou with me?" he asked of Ulen-
spiegel.

"To speak with you, Monseigneur," answered
Ulenspiegel.

"Speak," replied Brederode.

"You," said Ulenspiegel, "are a goodly, valiant, and
mighty lord. You strangled, once long ago, a French-
man within his cuirass like a mussel in its shell: but if
you are mighty and valiant, you are also of good coun-
sel. Why, then, do you wear this medal on which I read
'Faithful to the king even unto the beggar's wallet?' '

"Aye," asked Lamme, "why, Monseigneur?"

But Brederode made no reply whatever and looked
hard at Ulenspiegel. The latter continued:

"Why are you, you noble lords, fain to be faithful
to the king even to the wallet? Is it for the great
good he wills you, for the goodly amity he bears you?
Why, instead of being faithful to him unto the wallet,
why do ye not make it so that the despoiled tor-
mentor of his countries should be ever faithful to
the beggar's wallet?"

And Lamme Goedzak 271

And Lamme nodded his head in sign of assent.

Brederode looked at Ulenspiegel with his keen
glance and smiled, seeing his friendly open mien.

"If thou art not," said he, "a spy of King Philip's,
thou art a good Fleming, and I shall reward thee for
either case."

He brought him along, Lamme following, into his
office. There, pulling his ear till the blood came:

"That," he said, "is for the spy."

Ulenspiegel uttered no ciy.

"Bring," he said to his cellarer, "bring that kettle of
wine with cinnamon."

The cellarer brought the kettle and a great tankard
of mulled wine perfuming the air.

"Drink," said Brederode to Ulenspiegel; "this is for
the good Fleming."

"Ah!" said Ulenspiegel, "good Flemish, lovely cin-
namon speech, the saints speak not its like."

Then having drunk the half of the wine, he passed the
other half to Lamme.

"Who is he?" said Brederode, "this big-bellied pap-
zak who is rewarded without having done anything?"

"This," answered Ulenspiegel, "is my friend Lamme,
who every time he drinks wine mulled imagines he is
going to find his wife again."

"Aye," said Lamme, draining the wine from the
tankard with devout zeal.

"Whither go ye as now?" asked Brederode.

"We are going," answered Ulenspiegel, "in search of
the Seven that shall save the land of Flanders."

"What Seven?" asked Brederode.

"When I have found them, I shall tell you what they
are," answered Ulenspiegel.

272 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

But Lamme, all merry disposed from having drunk:

"Thyl," said he, "if we were to go to the moon to
look for my wife ? "

"Order the ladder," answered Ulenspiegel.

In May, the month of greenery, Ulenspiegel said to
Lamme:

"Lo the lovely month of May! Ah! the clear sky
of blue, the happy swallows; see the branches on the
trees ruddy with sap, the earth is in love. 'Tis the
moment to hang and burn for religion. They are there,
the dear little inquisitors. What noble countenances!
They have all power to correct, to punish, to degrade,
to hand over to the secular judges, to have their pris-
ons. Ah, the lovely month of May! — to arrest the
person, to conduct law suits without adhering to the
customary forms of justice, to burn, hang, behead, and
dig for poor women and girls the grave of premature
death. The finches sing in the trees. The good in-
quisitors have their eye on the rich. And the king
shall be heir. Go, damsels, dance in the meadows to
the sound of pipes and shawms. Oh! the lovely month
of May!"

The ashes of Claes beat upon the breast of Ulenspiegel.

"Let us on," he said to Lamme. "Happy they that
will keep an upright heart, and the sword aloft in the
black days that are to come!"

VIII

Ulenspiegel passed, one day in the month of August,
in the rue de Flandre at Brussels, before the house of
Jean Sapermillemente, so called because his paternal
grandsire when angry used to swear in this fashion as so

And Lamme Goedzak 273

to avoid blaspheming the most holy name of God. The
said Sapermillemente was a master b'oiderer by trade;
but having grown deaf and blind by dint of drinking,
his wife, an old gossip with a sour face, broidered in his
stead the coats, doublets, cloaks, and shoes of the lords.
Her pretty young daughter helped her in this well-
paid work.

Passing before the aforesaid house in the last hours
of daylight, Ulenspiegel saw the girl at the window and
heard her crying aloud:

"August, August
Tell me, sweet month,
Who will take me to wife,
Tell me, sweet month ? "

"I will," said Ulenspiegel, "if you like."

"Thou?" said she. "Come nearer that I may see
thee." But he:

"Whence comes it that you are calling in August
what the Brabant girls call on the Eve of March?"

"Those girls," she said, "have only one month to
give them a husband; I have twelve, and on the eve of
each, not at midnight but for six hours up to midnight,
I jump out of my bed, 1 take three steps backwards
towards the window, I cry what you have heard;
then returning, I take three steps backwards towards
the bed, and at midnight, going to bed, I fall asleep,
dreaming of the husband I shall have. But the
months, the sweet months, being mockers by nature,
'tis not of one husband I dream now, but of twelve
together; you shall be the thirteenth if you will."

"The others would be jealous," answered Ulen-
spiegel. "You cry also 'Deliverance'."

VOL.I. T

274 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

The girl answered, blushing:

"I cry 'Deliverance' and know what I ask for."

"I know, too, and I am bringing it to you," answered
Ulenspiegel.

"You must wait," said she, smiling and showing her
white teeth.

"Wait," said Ulenspiegel, "nay. A house may
fall on my head, a gust of wind might blow me into a
ditch, a mad pug might bite me in the leg; nay, I shall
not wait."

"I am too young," said she, "and only cry this for
custom's sake."

Ulenspiegel became suspicious, thinking that it is
on the Eve of March and not of the corn month that
the Brabant girls cry to have a husband.

She said, smiling:

"I armtoo young and only cry this for the sake of the
old custom."

"Will you wait till you are too old?" answered
Ulenspiegel. "That is bad arithmetic. Never have
I seen a neck so round, or whiter breasts, Flemish
breasts full of that good milk that makes men."

"Full?" said she, "not yet, Traveller in a hurry."

"Wait," repeated Ulenspiegel. "Must I have no
teeth left to eat you raw with, darling? You do not
answer, you smile with your eyes clear brown and your
lips red as cherries."

The girl, looking craftily at him, replied:

"Why dost thou love me so quickly? What is thy
trade? Art thou beggar, art thou rich?"

"A beggar," said he, " am I, and rich at the same time,
if you give me your darling self."

She replied:

And Lamme Goedzak 275

"That is not what I want to know. Dost thou go
to mass? Art thou a good Christian? Where dost
thou dwell? Wouldst thou dare to say that thou art
a Beggar, a true blue Beggar resisting the proclamations
and the Inquisition?"

The ashes of Claes beat upon Ulenspiegel's breast.

"I am a Beggar," said he, "I would fain see dead and
eaten by worms the oppressors of the Low Countries.
Thou lookest on me confounded and astonied. This
fire of love that burns for thee, darling, is the fire of
youth. God lighted it; it flames as the sun shines,
until it dieth down. But the fire of vengeance that
broodeth in my heart, God lit that as well. It will
be the sword, the fire, the rope, conflagration, devas-
tation, war, and ruin to the murderers."

"Thou art goodly," said she, sadly, kissing him on
both cheeks, "but hold thy peace."

"Why dost thou weep?" answered he.

"You must always," she said, "watch here and else-
where wherever you are."

"Have these walls ears?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"No ears but mine," said she.

"Carven by love, I will stop them with a kiss."

"Mad lover, listen to me when I speak to you."

"Why? what have you to say to me?"

"Listen to me," she said, impatient. "Here comes
my mother. . . . Hold your tongue, hold your
peace above all things before her. . . ."

The old Sapermillemente woman came in. Ulen-
spiegel studied her.

"Muzzle full of holes like a skimming ladle," said he
to himself, "eyes with a hard false look, mouth that
would laugh and grimace, you make me curious."

276 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"God be with you, Messire," said the old woman,
"be with you without ceasing. I have received mon-
eys, Daughter, good moneys from Messire d'Egmont
when I took him his cloak on which I had embroidered
the fool's bauble. Yes, Messire, the fool's bauble
against the Red Dog.'.'

"The Cardinal de Granvelle?" asked Ulenspiegel.

"Aye," said she, "against the Red Dog. It is said
that he denounces their doings to the King; they would
fain bring him to death. They are right, are they not ? "

Ulenspiegel answered not a word.

"You have not seen them in the streets clad in a
gray doublet and opperst-kleed, gray as the common
folk wear them, and the long hanging sleeves and their
monks' hoods and on all the opperst-kleed cren the
fool's bauble embroidered. I made at least twenty-
seven and my daughter fifteen. That incensed the
Red Dog to see these baubles."

Then speaking in Ulenspiegel's ear:

"I know that the lords have decided to replace the
bauble by a sheaf of corn in sign of unity. Aye, aye,
they mean to struggle against the king and the In-
quisition. It is well done of them, is it not, Messire?"

Ulenspiegel made no answer.

"The stranger lord is melancholy," said the old
woman; "he has his mouth tight shut all of a sudden."

Ulenspiegel said not a word and went out.

Presently he went into a gaffhouse so as not to
forget to drink. The gaff was full of drinkers speaking
imprudently of the king, of the detested proclamations,
of the Inquisition and of the Red Dog who must be
forced to leave the country. He saw the old woman,
all in rags, and seeming to doze beside a pint of brandy.

And Lamme Goedzak 277

She remained like that for a long time; then he saw
her taking a little platter out of her pocket, asking
money, especially from those who spoke the most
incautiously.

And the men gave her florins, deniers, and patards,
and without stinginess.

Ulenspiegel, hoping to learn from the girl what the
old Sapermillemente woman did not say to him,
passed before the house again; he saw the girl who was
not crying out her rhyme any more, but smiled at him
and winked her eye, a sweet promise.

All on a sudden the old woman came back after him.

Ulenspiegel, angry to see her, ran like a stag into the
street crying out: "'T brandt! 't brandt! Fire! Fire!"
till he came before the house of the baker Jacob Piet-
ersen. The front, glazed in the German fashion, was
flaming red to the sunset. A thick smoke, the smoke
of faggots turning to red coals in the furnace, was
pouring out of the bakehouse chimney. Ulenspiegel
never ceased to cry as he ran: "T brandt, 't brandt,"
and pointed out Jacob Pietersen's house. The crowd,
gathering in front of it, saw the red windows, the
thick smoke, and cried like Ulenspiegel: '"T brandt,
't brandt, it burns! it burns!" The watchman on
Notre Dame de la Chapelle blew his trumpet while the
beadle rang the bell called Wacharm in full peal. And
lads and lasses ran up in swarms, singing and whis-
tling.

The bell and the trumpet still sounding, the old
Sapermillemente woman picked up her heels and
went off.

Ulenspiegel was watching her. When she was far
away, he came into the house.

278 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"You here!" said the girl; "is there not a fire then
over yonder?"

"Yonder? No," replied Ulenspiegel.

"But that bell that is ringing so lamentably?"

"It knows not what it doth," answered Ulenspiegel.

"And that dolorous trumpet and all these folk run-
ning?"

"Infinite is the tale of fools."

"What is burning then?" said she.

"Thy eyes and my flaming heart," answered Ulen-
spiegel.

And he leaped to her mouth.

"You eat me," she said.

"I like cherries," said he.

She looked at him, smiling and distressed. Suddenly
bursting into tears:

"Come back here no more," she said. "You are a
Beggar, a foe to the Pope, do not come back. . . ."

"Thy mother!" said he.

"Aye," she said, blushing. "Dost thou know where
she is at this moment? She is listening where the fire
is. Dost thou know where she will go presently?
To the Red Dog, to report all she knows and make
ready the work for the duke that is to come. Flee,
Ulenspiegel; I save thee, but flee. Another kiss, but
come back no more; still another, thou art goodly, I
weep, but begone."

"Brave girl," said Ulenspiegel, holding her embraced.

"I was not always," she said. "I, too, like her . . ."

"These songs," said he, "these mute appealings of
beauty to men prone to love. . . ?"

"Aye," said she. "My mother would have it so.
Thou, I save thee, loving thee for love's sake. The

And Lamme Goedzak 279

others, I shall save them in remembrance of thee, my
beloved. When thou art far away, will thy heart pull
a little towards the girl that repented? Kiss me,
darling. She will never again for money give victims
to the stake. Go, go; nay, stay a little still. How soft
and smooth thy hand is! There, I kiss thy hand, it
is the sign of slavery; thou art my master. Listen,
come nearer, hush. Men, ragged scoundrels and rob-
bers and an Italian among them, came here last night,
one after the other. My mother brought them into
the chamber where thou art, and bade me go out
from it, and she shut the door. I heard these words:
'Stone crucifix. . . . Borgerhoet gate . . . pro-
cession. . . . Antwerp. . . . Notre Dame,'
suppressed laughter and florins counted out on the
table. . . . Flee, here they are; flee away, my
beloved. Keep a kind memory for me; flee. . . ."

Ulenspiegel ran as she bade him as far as the Old
Cock, In den ouden Haeny and found there Lamme
plunged in melancholy, eating a sausage and draining
his seventh quart of Louvain -peterman.

And he forced him to run like himself, in spite of
his belly.

IX

Running thus at full speed, followed by Lamme,
he found in the Eikenstraat a savage lampoon on
Brederode. He went and took it to him directly.

"Monseigneur," he said, "I am that good Fleming
and that king's spy whose ears you dressed down so
well, and to whom you gave such good mulled wine
to drink. He brings you a pretty little pamphlet in
which among other things you are accused of calling

280 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

yourself Count of Holland, like the king. It is fresh
and hot from the press of Jan a Calumnia, living
near the Vagabonds' Quay, in the blind alley of the
Thieves of Honour."

Brederode answered, smiling:

"I shall have you flogged for two hours if you do
not tell me the scribe's real name."

"Monseigneur," replied Ulenspiegel, "have me
flogged for two years if you will, but you will not be
able to make my back tell you what my mouth does
not know."

And he went away, not without getting a florin for
his trouble.

X

Since June, the month of roses, the preachings had
begun in the country of Flanders.

And the apostles of the primitive Christian Church
preached everywhere, in every place, in fields and in
gardens, on the hillocks which in times of flood were
used to keep cattle on, upon rivers, in boats.

On land, they entrenched themselves as in a camp,
surrounding themselves with their wains. Upon the
rivers and in harbours, boats filled with armed men
kept guard round about them.

And thus the word of freedom was heard on every
side on the soil of our fathers.

XI

Ulenspiegel and Lamme being at Bruges, with
their cart, which they left in a yard close by, went into
the church of Saint Sauveur, instead of going to the

And Lamme Goedzak 281

tavern, for there was in their pouches no more the
merry clink of coins.

Father Cornelis Adriensen, a minor friar, dirty,
brazen, furious, and a bellowing preacher, was on that
day occupying the pulpit of truth.

Beautiful young devout women were thronging all
around.

Father Cornelis was discoursing of the Passion.
When he came to the passage in the Holy Gospel where
the Jews cried to Pilate, speaking of our Lord Jesus,
"Crucify him, crucify him, for we have our law, and
by that law he must die," Broer Cornelis exclaimed:

"Ye have just heard it, good people, if Our Lord
Jesus Christ endured a dreadful and a shameful death,
it is because there have at all times been laws to punish
heretics. He was justly condemned, because he had
disobeyed those laws. And to-day they would fain
regard as naught the edicts and proclamations. Ah!
Jesus! What curse wouldst thou set upon these
lands. Honoured Mother of God, if the Emperor
Charles were still alive, and could he see the scandal
of these confederate nobles who have dared to present
to the Lady Governor a request against the Inquisi-
tion and against the proclamations made for an aim
so good, which are so ripely thought out, and pro-
mulgated after so long and so wise reflection and
deliberation, to destroy all sects and heresies! And
they would fain reduce them to nothing, though they
are more necessary than bread and than cheese! In
what foul, loathsome, abominable gulf are we to be
made to fall to-day? Luther, that vile Luther, that
mad ox, triumphs in Saxony, in Brunswick, in Lune-
bourg, in Mecklenburg; Brentius, that dung Brentius

282 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

who lived in Germany upon acorns the pigs refused,
Brentius triumphs in Wiirttemberg; Servetus the Lu-
natic, who hath a quarter of the moon in his head,
the Trinitarian Servetus, reigns in Pomerania, in
Denmark and in Sweden, and there he dares to blas-
pheme the holy, glorious, and mighty Trinity. Aye.
But I am informed that he hath been burned alive by
Calvin, who was never right or good save in that; aye,
by the stinking Calvin who smells of musty sourness;
aye, with his long face like a leather bottle; a face of
cheese, with his big teeth like a gardener's shovel. Aye,
these wolves eat one another; aye, the ox Luther, the
mad ox, roused the princes of Germany to arms against
the Anabaptist Miinzer, who was a good man, they say,
and lived according to the Gospel. And through all
Germany the bellowings of this ox have been heard, aye!

"Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre,
Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Adamites running naked
through the streets; yea, good people, naked in the
streets, showing their lean flesh without shame to the
passers-by. There was but one of them, say you: aye —
let it pass — one is as good as a hundred, a hundred is
even as one. And he was burned, say you, and he
was burned alive, at the request of the Calvinists and
Lutherans. These wolves eat one another, I say unto
you!

"Aye, and what do we see in Flanders, Gueldre,
Frisia, Holland, Zealand? Free thinkers teaching that
all servitude is contrary to the word of God. They lie,
the stinking heretics; we must submit to the Holy
Mother Church of Rome. And there, in that accursed
city of Antwerp, the rendezvous and meeting-ground
of all the heretic dogs in the world, they have dared to

And Lamme Goedzak 283

preach that we prepare and bake the host with dog's
grease. Another saith, 'tis that beggar upon the
chamber pot at the corner of the street, 'There is no
God, nor life eternal, nor resurrection of the body,
nor everlasting damnation.' 'We can,' saith another
yonder, in a whining voice, 'baptise without salt, or
lard, or spittle, without exorcism and without candle.'
'There is no purgatory,' says another. There is no
purgatory, good people! Ah! it were better for you to
have committed sin with your mothers, your sisters,
and your daughters, than to doubt purgatory.

"Aye, and they turn up their nose at the Inquisitor,
that holy man, aye. They came to Belem, near this
place, as many as four thousand Calvinists, with weap-
oned men, banners and drums. Aye. And you can
smell from here the smoke of their cooking fires. They
have taken the Church of Saint Catholyne to dis-
honour it, profane it, desecrate it by their damnable
preachifying.

"What is this impious and scandalous tolerance?
By the thousand devils of hell, ye supine, faint-hearted
Catholics, why do not ye also take weapons into your
hands? Ye have, even as these damned Calvinists,
cuirasses, lances, halberds, swords, daggers, arbalests,
knives, cudgels, pikes, the town falconets and culverins.

"They are peaceful folk, say you; they desire in all
freedom and tranquillity to hear the word of God.
That is all one to me. Go forth from Bruges! hunt
me, slay me, blow me up all these Calvinists that are
without the pale of the Church. Ye are not yet
started! Fie on you! Ye are hens trembling with
fear on your dunghill. I see the moment when these
damned Calvinists will drum on your wives' and daugh-

284 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

ters' bellies, and you will let them, men of tow and
putty. Go not over yonder, go not ... ye
will get your stockings wet in the battle. Fie upon
you, men of Bruges! fie upon you, Catholics! That
is well done and like true Catholics, O cowardly pol-
troons! Shame upon you, ducks and drakes, geese and
turkeys that you are!

"Are not they goodly preachers, that you should go
in crowds to hearken to the lies they belch forth, that
the young girls should go by night to their sermons, aye,
and that in nine months the town should be full of
little beggar-boys and beggar-girls ? There were four
of them there, four scandalous vagabonds, that preach-
ed in the cemetery of the church. The first of these
vagabonds, livid and lean, the ugly loose-belly, had
a dirty hat upon his head. Thanks to it his ears
were not to be seen. Which of you hath seen the ears of
a preacher? He had no shirt, for his bare arms came
linenless out through his doublet. I saw it well, though
he tries to cover himself up with a dirty little cloak,
and I saw, too, all right in his black canvas breeches,
full of open work like the spire of Notre Dame, the
swinging of his bells and clapper. The other vagabond
preached in a doublet, and no shoes. Nobody saw his
ears. And he had to stop short in his preachifying,
and the boys and girls began to hoot him, crying: 'Yah!
Yah! he doesn't know his lesson!' The third of these
scandalous vagabonds had on his head a dirty ugly
little hat, with a little feather sticking out of the top.
And his ears were not to be seen, either. The fourth
of the rascals, Hermanus, better arrayed than the
others, must have been branded on the shoulder twice
by the executioner, aye, verily.

And Lamme Goedzak 285

"They all wear under their headgear greasy silk caps
that hide their ears. Did you ever see the ears of a
preacher? Which of these rogues ever dared to show
his ears? His ears! Ah! yes, show his ears; they have
all been cut off. Aye, the executioner has cut the ears
off every one of them.

"And yet it was round about these scandalous rogues,
these cut purses, these cobblers that have run away from
their stools, these ragamuffin preachers, that all the
whole populace went crying and shouting: 'Long live the
Beggars!' as if they had all been mad, drunk, or fools.

"Ah, it only remains for us poor Roman Catholics
to leave the Low Countries, since there they allow this
bawling cry: 'Long live the Beggars! Long live the
Beggars!' What a millstone of a curse hath therefore
fallen upon this bewitched and foolish folk, ah! Jesus!
Everywhere, rich and poor, noble and base, young and
old, men and women, all cry out: 'Long live the Beg-
gars!'

"And what are all these lords, these scald leather
seats that have come to us from Germany? All their
having is gone on harlots, or gaming, lechery, lewdness,
long-drawn debauchery, rooted villainies, abominations
of dice and ostentation of outward array. They have
not even a rusty nail to scratch themselves with where
they itch. And now they must needs have the goods
and wealth of churches and convents.

"And there at their banquet in the house of that
rogue De Culembourg, with that other rogue De Brede-
rode, they drank in wooden bowls, for scorn of Messire
de Berlaymont and Madame the Lady Governor.
Aye, and they shouted 'Long live the Beggars!' Ah!
if I had been the good God (with all respect), I would

286 The Legend of Ulenspiegei

have caused their diink, whether it was beer or wine,
to be changed into a foul and loathy dishwater, aye,
into foul, abominable, stinking suds, in which they
had washed their shirts and foul sheets.

"Aye, bawl, donkeys that you are, bawl 'Long live
the Beggars!' Aye! and I am a prophet. And all the
curses, miseries, fevers, plagues, conflagrations, ruins,
desolations, cankers, English sweating sickness and
black plagues will fall upon the Low Countries. Aye,
thus will God be revenged upon your filthy braying
of 'Long live the Beggars!' And there will not be left
one stone of your houses upon another, and not a morsel
of bone in your damned legs that ran to this accursed
Calvinistry and preachifying. And so, so, so, so, so be
it. Amen!"

"Let us go, my son," said Ulenspiegei to Lamme.

"In a moment," said Lamme.

And he looked and searched among the beautiful
young devotees there present at the sermon, but he did
not discover his wife.

XII

Ulenspiegei and Lamme came to the place called
Minne-Water, Love-Water; but the great doctors and
Wysneusen Pedants say it is Minre-Water, Minim-
Water. Ulenspiegei and Lamme sat down upon the
brink, seeing pass by beneath the trees all leafy down
to their very heads, like a low roof, men, women, girls,
and boys,4iand in hand, garlanded with flowers, walking
hip to hip, looking tenderly in one another's eyes, with-
out seeing anything in this world but themselves.

Ulenspiegei, thinking of Nele, gazed at them. In his
melancholy, he said:

And Lamme Goedzak 287

"Let us go drink."

But Lamme, not hearkening Ulenspiegel, also looked
upon the pairs of lovers:

"In the old days we, too, used to pass, my wife and I,
loving each other under the eyes of those who like you
and me, on the edge of ditches, were stretched out
solitary and without a woman."

"Come and drink," said Ulenspiegel, "we shall find
the Seven at the bottom of a quart."

"A drinker's word," answered Lamme: "you know
the Seven are giants who could not stand upright under
the big dome of the church of Saint Sauveur."

Ulenspiegel, thinking wretchedly of Nele, and also
that in some hostelry he might perchance find a good
bed, good supper, a comely hostess, said yet again:

"Let us go and drink!"

But Lamme paid no heed, and said, looking at the
tower of Notre Dame :

"Madame Holy Mary, patroness of lawful loves,
grant me to see again her white bosom, that soft pillow."

"Come and drink," said Ulenspiegel, "you shall find
her, displaying it to the drinkers, in a tavern."

"Dost thou dare think so ill of her?" said Lamme.

"Let us go and drink," said Ulenspiegel, "she is
baesine somewhere, without a doubt."

"Thirst talk," said Lamme.

Ulenspiegel went on:

"Perchance keepeth she in reserve for poor travellers
a dish of goodly stewed beef, whose spices perfume the
air, not too rich, tender, succulent as rose leaves, and
swimming like Shrove Tuesday fishes amid cloves, nut-
meg, cocks' combs, sweetbreads, and other celestial
dainties."

288 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Cruel!" said Lamme, "you mean to kill me for sure.
Do you not know that for two days we have lived on
nothing but dry bread and small beer?"

"Hunger talk," answered Ulenspiegel. "You are
weeping with appetite; come and eat and drink. I
have here a fine half florin that will defray the cost of
our feast."

Lamme laughed. They went to find their cart and
thus went about the town, seeking to know which was
the best inn. But seeing several crabbed countenances
on the baes and no wise pleasing on the baesines, they
passed on, thinking that a sour face is a poor sign for a
hospitable kitchen.

They arrived at the Saturday Market and went into
the hostelry called de Blauwe-Lanteern, the Blue-Lan-
tern. Here there was a baes of pleasant aspect.

They put up their cart and had the ass lodged in the
stable, in company with a peck of oats. They ordered
supper to be served, ate their fill, slept well, and rose to
eat again. Lamme, bursting with comfort, said:

"I hear heavenly music in my stomach."

When the time came to pay, the baes came to Lamme
and said to him:

"Ten patards, if you please."

"He has them," said Lamme, pointing to Ulen-
spiegel who answered:

"I have not."

"And the half florin?" said Lamme.

"I have not got it," said Ulenspiegel.

"This is all very well," said the baes: " I shall take the
doublet and the shirt off both of you."

Suddenly Lamme, plucking up bottle courage:

"And if I want to eat and drink, I," exclaimed he,

And Lamme Goedzak 289

"to eat and drink, aye, drink for twenty-seven florins
worth or more, I will do it. Dost thou think there is
not a sou's value in this belly of mine? Good God!
it was never fed till now but on ortolans. Never didst
thou carry the like under thy greasy girdle. For like
an ill fellow thou hast thy tallow on the collar of thy
doublet, and not like me, three inches of dainty fat on
the paunch!"

The baes had fallen into an ecstasy of rage. A stam-
merer by nature, he wanted to speak quickly; the more
he hurried, the more he sneezed and sputtered like a
dog coming out of the water. Ulenspiegel threw little
balls of bread at his nose. And Lamme, becoming
hotter, went on:

"Aye, I have wherewith to pay for your three scraggy
hens, your four mangy pullets, and that big idiot of a
peacock dragging his dirty tail in your yard. And if
your skin was not drier than an old cock's, if your bones
were not crumbling to dust in your breast, I would have
still enough to eat you, yourself, your snot of a man,
your one-eyed maid and your cook, who if he had itch
would have arms too short to scratch himself.

"Do you see," he went on, "do you see this fine bird
that, for half a florin, wants to seize our doublets and
our shirts? Tell me what your wardrobe is worth,
tattered impertinence, and I will give you three liards
for it."

But the baes, becoming angrier and angrier, puffed
and blew the more.

And Ulenspiegel flung balls in his face.

Lamme, like a roaring lion, said:

"How much do you think, scrawny face, a fine ass is
worth, with a fine muzzle, long ears, wide chested,

VOL.1. u

290 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

with legs of iron ? Eighteen florins at the least, is not
that so, miserable baes? How many old nails have
you in your coffers to pay for so fine a beast?"

The baes sputtered more and more, but dared not
budge.

Lamme said:

"How much do you think a fine cart is worth, all
made of ash painted red, and equipped all over with
Courtrai canvas against the sun and the showers?
Twenty-four florins at least, hey? And how much is
twenty-four florins and eighteen florins? Answer that,
leper devoid of arithmetic. And as it is a market day,
and as there are farming folk in your miserable hostelry,
I am going to sell cart and donkey to them at once."

And so it was done, for all knew Lamme. And in
fact he got for his ass and his cart forty-four florins and
ten patards. Then, clinking the gold under the nose of
the baes, he said to him:

"Dost thou smell in that the savour of feasting to
come ? "

"Aye," replied the host.

And he said under his breath:

"When you are selling your skin, I will buy a liard's
worth to make a charm against prodigality with it."

In the meantime, a pretty, taking woman who was
in the dark of the yard had come again and again to
look at Lamme through the window, and drew back
every time he might have caught sight of her pretty
face.

That night, on the staircase, as he was going up with-
out a light, tottering a little from the wine he had
drunk, he felt a woman who flung her arms about him,
kissed him on the cheek, the mouth, even on the nose,

And Lamme Goedzak 291

gluttonously, and wetting his face with amorous tears,
then left him.

Lamme, all sleepy from his drink, went to bed, fell
asleep, and next day went off to Ghent with Ulenspiegel.

XIII

There he sought for his wife in all the kaberdoesjen,
musicos, tafelhooren, and taverns. At night, he re-
joined Ulenspiegel in den zingende Zwaan* at the Singing
Swan. Ulenspiegel went wherever he could, spreading
alarm and rousing the people against the butchers of the
land of their fathers.

Finding himself in the Friday Market, near the
Dulle-Griety the Great Cannon, Ulenspiegel lay down
flat on his face on the pavement.

A coalman came and said to him:

"What are you doing there?"

"I am damping my nose to know which way the wind
blows," replied Ulenspiegel.

A carpenter came along.

"Do you take the pavement," said he, "for a mat-
tress?"

"There are some," replied Ulenspiegel, "who will
soon take it for a quilt."

A monk stopped.

"What is this moon calf doing there?" he asked.

"He is on his face begging for your blessing, Father,"
replied Ulenspiegel.

The monk having bestowed it, went on his way.

Ulenspiegel then lay with his ear against the ground.
A peasant came by.

"Dost thou hear any noise from below?" he said.

292 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"Aye," replied Ulenspiegel, "I hear the wood grow-
ing, the wood whose faggots will serve to burn poor
heretics."

"Dost thou hear naught else?" said a constable of
the commune to him.

"I hear," said Ulenspiegel, "the gendarmerie coming
from Spain; if thou hast aught to keep, bury it, for soon
the towns will be safe no longer by reason of robbers."

"He is mad," said the constable.

"He is mad," repeated the townsfolk.

XIV

Meanwhile, Lamme could not eat, thinking of the
sweet vision of the stairs at the Blauwe-Lanteern. His
heart turning to Bruges, he was led perforce by Ulen-
spiegel to Antwerp, where he continued his sorrowful
searchings.

Ulenspiegel being in the taverns, in the midst of good
Flemings of the reformed faith, or even Catholics that
were lovers of liberty, would say to them about the
proclamations: "They bring us the Inquisition under
pretext of purging us from heresy, but it is meant for
our purses, this rhubarb. We have no love to be
physicked save at our own will and as we choose; we
shall be wroth, we shall rebel and take arms in our hands.
The king knew this wrell beforehand. Seeing that we
have no mind to rhubarb, he will advance the syringes,
to wit the great guns and the little guns, serpents, fal-
conets, and mortars with their big mouths. A kingly
clyster! There will not be left a single rich Fleming in
all Flanders physicked in this fashion. Happy is our
land to have so royal a physician."

And Lamme Goedzak 293

But the townsfolk could only laugh.

Ulenspiegel would say: "Laugh to-day, but flee or
arm on that day when something is broken at Notre
Dame."

XV

On the 1 5th of August, the great feast of Mary and
of the blessing of herbs and roots, when filled with corn
the hens are deaf to the bugle of the cock imploring love,
a great stone crucifix was broken at one of the gates of
Antwerp by an Italian in the pay of the Cardinal de
Granvelle, and the procession of the Virgin, preceded
by fools in green, in yellow, and in red, came forth out of
the church of Notre Dame.

But the Virgin's statue, having been insulted on the
way by men whom no one knew, was hastily taken back
into the choir of the church, the iron gates of which were
shut.

Ulenspiegel and Lamme went into Notre Dame.
Young beggars and ragamuffins, and some grown men
among them, that nobody knew were in front of the
choir, making certain signs and grimaces one to another.
They were making a great din with feet and tongues.
No one had seen them before in Antwerp, no one ever
saw them again. One of them, with a face like a burned
onion, asked if Mieke, that was Our Lady, had been
afraid that she had gone back to the church in such a
hurry.

"It is not of thee that she is afeared, ugly blacka-
moor," replied Ulenspiegel.

The young man to whom he spoke went up to him,
to beat him, but Ulenspiegel, gripping him by the
collar:

294 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"If you strike me," said he, "I will make you spew
out your tongue."

Then turning towards certain men of Antwerp that
were present:

"Signorkes and pagaders" said he, pointing out the
ragged young men, "be cautious, these are spurious
Flemings, traitors paid to bring us to ill, to misery, and
to ruin."

Then speaking to the strangers:

"Hey," said he, "donkey faces, withered with want,
whence have ye the money that chinks to-day in your
pouches? Have ye perchance sold your skins before-
hand for drumheads?"

"Look at the sermonizer!" said the strangers.

Then they all began to shout together with one ac-
cord speaking of Our Lady:

"Mieke has a fine robe. Mieke has a fine crown!
I will give them to my doxy. "

They went away, while one of them had got up into
a pulpit to proclaim insulting and outrageous things
from it, and they came back crying:

"Come down, Mieke, come down before we go and
fetch you. Perform a miracle, that we may see if
you can walk as well as you can have Mieke carried
about, the lazy thing!"

But Ulenspiegel cried in vain: "Workers of ruin, have
done with your vile talk; all pillage is a crime!" They
ceased not at all from their talk; and some spoke even
of breaking into the choir to force Mieke to come down.

Hearing this, an old woman, who sold candles in the
church, flung in their faces the ashes of her foot warmer;
but she was beaten and flung down on the floor, and then
the riot began.

And Lamme Goedzak 295

The markgrave came to the church with his ser-
geants. Seeing the populace assembled, he exhorted
them to leave the church, but so feebly that only a few
went away; the others said :

"First we want to hear the canons singing vespers in
honour of Mieke."

The markgrave replied:

"There shall be no singing."

"We will sing ourselves," answered the ragged
strangers.

Which they did in the naves and near the porch of the
church. Some played at Krieke-steenen, at cherry-
stones, and said: "Mieke, you never game in paradise
and you are bored there; play with us."

And insulting the statue without ceasing, they cried
out, hooted and whistled.

The markgrave pretended to be afraid and departed.
By his orders all the doors of the church were shut save
one.

Without the populace having any hand in it, the rag-
tag and bobtail of the strangers became bolder and
shouted more and more. And the roofs reechoed as
though to the din of a hundred cannon.

One of them, he of the face like a burned onion, ap-
pearing to have some authority among them, got up
into a pulpit, made a sign with his hand to them, and
began to preach:

"In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost," said he: "the three making but one,
and the one making three, God keep us in paradise
from arithmetic; this day the twenty-ninth of August,
Mieke went forth in great pomp of array to show her
wooden face to the signorkes and pagaders of Antwerp.

296 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

But Mieke, in the procession met the devil Satanas.
And Satanas said to her, mocking her: 'There you are,
high and mighty, prinked up like a queen, Mieke, and
borne by four signorkes, and you will not look now at
the poor pagader Satanas that makes his way on foot.'
And Mieke answered: 'Begone, Satanas, or I bruise
thy head still more than ever, foul serpent!' 'Mieke,'
said Satanas, 'that is the task in which you have been
spending your time for fifteen hundred years, but the
Spirit of the Lord, your master, hath delivered me.
I am stronger than you are; you shall not walk over
my head any more, and I am going to make you dance
now.' Satanas took a great whip, sharp and cutting,
and started to flog Mieke, who dared not cry out for
fear of showing her terror, and then she began to run as
hard as she could, forcing the signorkes that were carry-
ing her to run, too, so as not to let her fall with her gold
crown and her jewels among the poor common folk.
And now Mieke stays as stiff and as still as a frightened
mouse in her niche, watching Satan, who is seated up
at the top of the pillar under the little dome, and who
says to her, still grasping his whip and grinning, 'I will
make you pay for the blood and tears that flow in your
name! Mieke, how goes your virgin birth? This is
the time to flit. You shall be cut in twain, evil statue
of wood, for all the statues of flesh and bone that were
burned in your name, burned, hanged, buried alive
without pity.' So spake Satanas; and he spoke well.
And thou must come down from thy niche, bloody
Mieke, Mieke the cruel, that wast in no way like thy
son Christus."

And all the band of the strangers, hooting and crying
out, shouted: "Mieke! Mieke! it is time to come out!

And Lamme Goedzak 297

Are you wetting your linen for fear in your niche?
Up Brabant for the good Duke. Away with the wooden
saints! Who will have a bath in the Scheldt! Wood
swims better than fishes."

The populace listened to them without saying a word.

But Ulenspiegel, getting up into the pulpit, threw
down the stair by main force the one that was ha-
ranguing.

"Fools fit to tie," he said, speaking to the populace;
"lunatic fools, idiot fools, who see no further than the
end of your dirty noses, do ye not see that all this is the
work of traitors? They mean to make you commit
sacrilege and pillage that they may declare you rebels,
empty your coffers, cut off your heads, and burn you
alive! And the king will inherit. Signorkes and pa-
gaderSy do not believe in the speeches of these artificers
of woes : leave Notre Dame in her niche, live stoutly,
working happily, spending your earnings and profits.
The black devil of ruin has his eye upon you, and it is
through sackings and destruction that he will call up
the army of your foes to treat you as rebels and make
Alba reign over you with dictatorship, inquisition, con-
fiscation, and death."

"And he will inherit!"

"Alas," said Lamme, "do not pillage anything,
signorkes and pagaders; the king is already very angry.
The daughter of the embroideress told my friend
Ulenspiegel so. Do not indulge in pillage, sirs!"

But the populace would not give ear to them.

The unknown kept shouting:

"Sack and turn out! Sack Brabant for the good
Duke! To the river with wooden saints! They swim
better than fishes!"

298 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Ulenspiegel, still in the pulpit, cried in vain :

" Signer kes and -pagaders do not suffer pillage! Do
not call down ruin upon the town!"

He was plucked away from there all torn, face, doub-
let, and breeches, though he avenged himself with both
feet and hands. And all bleeding he never ceased to
cry out:

"Do not suffer pillage!"

But it was in vain.

The unknown and the ragtag and bobtail of the city
flung themselves on the iron grille of the choir, which
they broke through, crying:

"Long live the Beggar!"

They all set to work to break, sack, destroy. Before
midnight this great church, in which there were seventy
altars, every kind of noble paintings and precious things,
was empty as a nut. The altars were broken, the
images flung down, and all the locks smashed.

This being done, the same unknown set off to treat
like Notre Dame, the Minor Brothers, the Franciscans,
Saint Peter, Saint'Andrew, Saint Michael, Saint Pierre-
au-Pot, the Bourg, the Fawkens, the White Sisters, the
Gray Sisters, the Third Order, the Preachers, and all
the churches and chapels in the city. They took can-
dles and torches out of them and ran around everywhere
in this manner.

Among them there was no quarrel nor dispute; not
one of them was hurt in that great demolishing of wood
and other materials.

They betook themselves to The Hague to proceed
there to the overthrow of statues and altars, without
the reformed lending them any aid either there or else-
where.

And Lamme Goedzak 299

At The Hague, the magistrate asked them where was
their commission.

"It is here," said one of them, striking upon his
heart.

"Their commission, hear you, signorkes and paga-
ders?" said Ulenspiegel, having been\ informed of this.
"So then there is someone who deputes them to this
work of sacrilege. Let some robber thief come into my
cottage; I will do as did the magistrate of The Hague, I
will say, taking off my bonnet: 'Gentle robber, gracious
rogue, worshipful rascal, show me your commission.'
He will reply that it is in his heart that is greedy for my
goods. And I shall give him the keys of everything.
Seek, seek out who it is that profits by this pillage.
Beware of the Red Dog. The great stone crucifix is
flung down. Beware of the Red Dog!"

The Great Sovereign Council of Malines having
given orders through its president Viglius, not to put
any obstacle in the way of image breaking: — "Alas!"
said Ulenspiegel, "the harvest is ripe for the Spanish
reapers. The Duke! the Duke is marching upon you.
Flemings, the sea rises, the sea of vengeance. Poor
women and girls, flee the living grave! Poor men,
flee the gallows, the fire, and the sword! Philip means
to finish the bloody work of Charles. The father
sowed death and exile, the son hath sworn that he
would rather rule over a cemetery than over a heretic
folk. Flee; here be the executioner and the gravedig-
gers."

The populace hearkened to Ulenspiegel, and families
left the cities by hundreds, and the roads were encum-
bered with carts laden with the household stuff of those
that were going into exile.

300 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

And Ulenspiegel went everywhere, followed by Lamme
grieving and looking for his beloved.

And at Damme Nele wept by the side of Katheline
the madwife.

XVI

Ulenspiegel being at Ghent in the barley month
which is October, saw Egmont returning from revelling
and feasting in the noble company of the Abbot of
Saint Bavon. Being in a singing humour, he was ab-
sentmindedly allowing his horse to go at a foot pace.
Suddenly he saw a man who, carrying a lighted lantern,
was walking alongside him.

"What wouldst thou of me ? " asked Egmont.

"Good," replied Ulenspiegel, "the good of a lantern
when it is lit."

"Begone and leave me," replied the Count.

"I will not begone," rejoined Ulenspiegel.

"Wouldst thou have a stroke of the whip then?"

"I would willingly have ten, if I can put in your head
such a lantern that you might see clear from here to the
Escurial."

"I take no stock in thy lantern nor in the Escurial,"
replied the Count.

"Well, for my part," answered Ulenspiegel, "it burns
in me to give you a good advice."

Then taking by the bridle the Count's horse, rearing
and kicking:

"Monseigneur," said he, "think that now you dance
well on your horse and that your head dances also very
well upon your shoulders; but the king, they say, means
to interrupt this fine dance, to leave you your body,

And Lamme Goedzak 301

but to take your head and make it dance in a land so
far away that you will never be able to overtake it.
Give me a florin, I have earned it."

"The whip, if thou wilt not be off, evil newsmonger."

"Monseigneur, I am Ulenspiegel, the son of Claes,
that was burned alive for his belief and of Soetkin that
died of sorrow. The ashes beating upon my breast tell
me that Egmont, the gallant soldier, might with the
gendarmerie in his command oppose the thrice-victori-
ous troops of the Duke of Alba."

"Begone," replied Egmont, "I am no traitor."

"Save the countries; you alone can save them," said
Ulenspiegel.

The Count would have beaten Ulenspiegel; but he
had not waited for this and fled away, crying:

"Eat lanterns, eat lanterns, Messire Count. Save the
countries."

Another day, Egmont being athirst had stopped in
front of the inn In 't bondt verken, the Piebald Pig —
kept by a woman of Courtrai, a pretty piece, called
Musekin, the Little Mouse.

The Count, rising up in his stirrups, cried out:

"Bring me to drink!"

Ulenspiegel, who was in Musekin's service, came up
to the Count holding a pewter tankard in one hand
and in the other a flask of red wine.

The Count, seeing him:

"Are you there," said he, "ill-omened raven?"

"Monseigneur," answered Ulenspiegel, "if my omens
are black, 'tis because they are ill washen; but will
you tell me which is the redder, the wine that goes
down the throat or the blood that leaps out of the neck ?
That is what my lantern asked."

3O2 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

The Count made no answer, but paid and de-
parted.

XVII

Ulenspiegel and Lamme, each mounted on an ass,
which Simon Simonsen had given them, one of the
faithfuls of the Prince of Orange, went everywhere,
warning the burgesses of the black designs of the king
of blood, and ever on the watch to discover news coming
from Spain.

They sold vegetables, being clad like country folk,
and haunted all the markets.

Coming back from the Brussels market, they saw in
a stone house, on the Brick Quay, in a low chamber,
a handsome dame clad in satin, high coloured, well
bosomed, and with a lively eye.

She was saying to a fresh young cookmaid:

"Scour me this pan, I do not like rust sauce."

Ulenspiegel put his nose in at the window.

"I," said he, "I like every sauce, for a hungry belly
is no great picker and chooser among fricassees."

The dame turning round:

"Who," said she, "is this fellow that interferes with
my soup?"

"Alas! fair dame," answered Ulenspiegel, "if you
would only make it in my company, I would teach you
travellers' stews unknown to fair dames that sit at
home."

Then clacking with his tongue, he said:

"I am thirsty."

"For what?" said she.

"For thee," said he.

"He is a pretty fellow," said the cookmaid to the

And Lamme Goedzak 303

dame. "Let us bring him in and let him tell us his
adventures."

"But there are two of them," said the dame.

"I will look after one," replied the maid.

"Madame," said Ulenspiegel, "we are two, it is true,
myself and my poor Lamme, who cannot carry five
pounds on his back, but carries five hundred on his
stomach in meats and drinks with the best will in the
world."

"My son," said Lamme, "do not mock at an un-
happy man to whom it costs so much to fill his paunch."

"It will not cost thee a Hard to-day," said the dame.
"Come within, both of you."

"But," said Lamme, "there are also two asses upon
which we are."

"Pecks of corn," replied the dame, "are nowise lack-
ing in the stable of the Count of Meghem."

The cookmaid left her pan and drew into the yard
Ulenspiegel and Lamme bestriding their asses, which
began to bray incontinent.

"That," said Ulenspiegel, "is the flourish for food
near at hand. They are trumpeting their joy, the poor
asses!"

And having both dismounted, Ulenspiegel said to
the cookmaid :

"If you were a she-ass, would you like an ass like

5»

me:

"If I was a woman," she replied, "I should like a
young man with a jolly face."

"What are you, then, being neither woman nor ass?"
asked Lamme.

"A virgin," quoth she, "a virgin is neither woman
nor ass either: do you understand, big belly?"

304 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

Ulenspiegelsaid to Lamme:

"Do not believe her, 'tis half a wild girl and quarter
of two she-devils. Her carnal tricks have already
bespoken for her in hell a place on a mattress to fondle
Beelzebub."

"Evil mocker," said the cook, "if your hairs were
horsehair I would not have them even to walk on them."

"For my part," said Ulenspiegel, "I would like to eat
all your hair."

"Golden tongue," said the dame, "must you have
them all?"

"No," replied Ulenspiegel, "a thousand would suf-
fice me melted down into one like you."

The dame said to him:

"Drink first a quart of bruinbier, eat a piece of ham,
cut deep into this leg of mutton, disembowel me this
pie, swallow me this salad."

Ulenspiegel joined his hands.

"Ham," said he, "is a good meat; bruinbier, heavenly
beer; leg of mutton, divine flesh; a pie that one disem-
bowels makes one's tongue tremble with pleasure in
the mouth; a fat salad is princely swallowing. But
blessed will he be to whom you will give to sup on your
beauty."

"See how he rattles on," said she. "Eat first of all,
vagabond!"

Ulenspiegel replied :

"Shall we not say the benedicite before the graces?"

"No," said she.

Then Lamme, whining, said :

"I am hungry."

"You shall eat," said the fair dame, "since you have
no other care than for cooked meat.'

And Lamme Goedzak 305

"And fresh, too, as my wife was," said Lamme. The
cookmaid became sullen at this word. All the same
they ate copiously and drank in floods. And the dame
that night gave Ulenspiegel his supper, and next day
and the days that followed.

The asses had double measure of corn and Lamme a
double portion. For a whole week he never left the
kitchen, and he played with the dishes, but not with
the cook, for he thought of his wife.

That angered the girl, who said it was hardly worth
while to cumber the world only to think of one's belly.

Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel and the dame lived in good
amity. And one day she said to him:

"Thyl, thou hast no manners: who art thou?"

"I am," said he, "a son that Happy Chance had one
day on Good Adventure."

"Thou dost not missay thyself," said she.

"'Tis for fear others may not praise me," replied
Ulenspiegel.

"Wouldst thou undertake the defence of thy brothers
that are persecuted?"

"The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast," replied
Ulenspiegel.

"How goodly thou art there!" said she. "Who is
this Claes?"

Ulenspiegel replied:

"My father, burned for his belief."

"The Count of Meghem is not like thee," she said.
"He would bleed the country I love, for I was born at
Antwerp the glorious city. Know then that he has
accorded with the Councillor Scheyf of Brabant to
admit him into Antwerp with his ten companies of
infantry."

VOL.1. X

306 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

"I will denounce him to the citizens," said Ulenspie-
gel, "and I go immediately, light as a ghost."

He went, and on the morrow the townsfolk were in
arms.

However, Ulenspiegel and Lamme, having left their
asses with a farmer of Simon Simonsen's, were forced to
hide for fear of the Count de Meghem who had them
searched for everywhere to have them hanged; for he
had been told that two heretics had drunk of his wine
and eaten of his meat.

He was jealous, and said so to the fair dame, who
gnashed her teeth with anger, wept, and fainted seven-
teen times. The cookmaid did the same, but not so
often, and declared upon her share of Paradise and
eternal salvation that she nor her lady had done noth-
ing, except to give the remains of a dinner to two poor
pilgrims who, mounted on wretched donkeys, had stop-
ped at the kitchen window.

And that day there were shed so many tears that
the floor was all damp with them. Seeing which,
Messire de Meghem was assured that they were not
lying.

Lamme dared not show himself again at M. de Meg-
hem's house, for the cook always called him "My
wife!"

And he was exceedingly grieved, thinking of the
food; but Ulenspiegel always brought him some good
dish, for he used to go into the house by the rue Sainte
Catherine and hide in the garret.

The next day, at vespers, the Count de Meghem
confessed to the handsome goodwife how that he
had determined to fetch the gendarmerie he com-
manded into Bois-le-Duc before daybreak. The

And Lamme Goedzak 307

goodwife went to the garret to recount this to Ulen-
spiegel.

XVIII

Ulenspiegel in pilgrim's robes set out incontinent
with neither provisions nor money for Bois-le-Duc, in
order to warn the citizens. He counted on taking a
horse by the way at Jeroen Praet's, Simon's brother,
for whom he had letters from the Prince, and from
thence he would go full speed by cross-country ways to
Bois-le-Duc.

Going along the highway, he saw a band of troopers
coming. He was sore afraid because of the letters.

But, resolved to set a good face against misadventure,
he waited the troopers stoutly, and stopped in the way
muttering his paternosters; when they passed he
marched with them, and learned that they were going
to Bois-le-Duc.

A company of Walloons opened the march, and at the
head was Captain Lamotte with his guard of six hal-
berdiers; then according to their rank, the ensign with
a smaller guard, the provost, his halberdiers and his
two myrmidons, the chief of the watch, the baggage
wardens, the executioner and his assistant, and fifes and
tambourines making loud uproar.

Then came a Flemish company of two hundred men,
with its captain and its standard bearer, and di-
vided into two centuries commanded by the troop
sergeants, and in decuries commanded by the rot-
•meesters. The provost and the stock s-knechten were
likewise preceded by fifes and tambourines beating and
squealing.

Behind them came, with bursts of laughter, twitter-
VOL.I. x 2

308 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

ing like warblers, singing like nightingales, eating,
drinking, dancing, standing, lying, or riding, their
women; handsome wild girls, in two open carts.

Some were clad like lansquenets, but in fine white
linen low-necked, slashed on the arms, the legs, the
doublet, showing their sweet flesh; with caps on their
heads of fine linen edged with gold, and surmounted
by handsome ostrich plumes floating in the wind. At
their belts of cloth-of-gold touched off with red satin,
hung the cloth-of-gold scabbards of their daggers.
And their shoes, stockings, and breeches, their doublets,
laces, and metal trappings were all made of gold and
white silk.

Others were also clad in the fashion of landsknechts,
but in blue, in green, in scarlet, in azure, in crimson,
slashed, broidered, blazoned at their own caprice. And
all wore upon their arm the armlet of the colour that
indicated their profession.

A hoer-zuyfely their sergeant, would fain have made
them keep silence; but by their captivating grimaces
and speeches they forced him to laugh and never
obeyed him at all.

Ulenspiegel, in pilgrim array, walked in company
with the two troops, as a small boat might with a
great ship. And he kept on murmuring his pater-
nosters.

Suddenly Lamotte said to him:

"Whither art thou going thus, Pilgrim?"

"Master Captain," replied Ulenspiegel, who was
hungry, "long ago I committed a grave sin and was
condemned by the chapter of Notre Dame to go a-foot
to Rome to ask for pardon from the Holy Father,
who accorded it to me. I came back to these countries

And Lamme Goedzak 309

cleansed of my offence on condition that on the way I
should preach the Sacred Mysteries to all and any
soldiers I might meet with, who should in return for
my sermons give me bread and meat. And thus
preaching I sustain my poor life. Will you grant me
permission to keep my vow at the next halt?"

"Yea," said Messire de Lamotte.

Ulenspiegel, mingling and fraternizing with the
Walloons and Flemings, felt his letters underneath
his doublet.

The girls cried out to him:

"Pilgrim, handsome pilgrim, come hither and show
us the power of your scallops."

Ulenspiegel, drawing near to them, said modestly:

"My sisters in God, mock not ye the poor pilgrim
who goeth over mountain and by vale to preach the
holy faith unto soldiers."

And he devoured with his eyes their dainty charms.

But the girls, thrusting their sprightly faces into the
openings in the canvas of the carts:

"You are very young," said they, "to preach to
soldiers. Come up into our carts, we will teach you
pleasant discourses."

Ulenspiegel would willingly have obeyed, but could
not on account of his letters; already two of the girls,
reaching their round white arms out of the cart, were
trying to pull him up to them, when the hoer-wyfel,
jealous, said to Ulenspiegel : " If you do not take your-
self off, I will have your head off."

And Ulenspiegel went farther off, looking slyly at the
fresh girls, all golden in the sun, which shone bright
and clear on the road.

They came to Berchem. Philippe de Lannoy,

310 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

sieur de Beauvoir, the commander of the Flemings,
ordered them to halt.

At this place there was an oak of middle height,
bereft of all its branches, except one big bough broken
off halfway on which the month before there had been
an Anabaptist hanged by the neck.

The soldiers stopped; the sutlers came to them, and
sold them bread,, wine, beer, meats of every kind. As
for the girls, they sold them sugar, castrelins, almonds,
tartlets, seeing which Ulenspiegel grew still hungrier.

Suddenly climbing up the tree like a monkey, he
planted himself astride of the great bough that was
some seven feet above the earth; there, lashing himself
with a scourge, while the troopers and the girls made
circle about him:

"In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost," said he. "Amen. It is written: 'He
that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord': soldiers,
and ye, beauteous dames, sweet companions in love
to these valiant warriors, lend ye to the Lord, which
is to say: give me bread, meat, wine, beer, if ye will,
tartlets if it please you, and God, who is rich, will
repay it you in morsels of ortolans, in rivers of mal-
voisie, in mountains of sugar candy, in rystpap which
ye shall eat in paradise with silver spoons."

Then bemoaning himself:

"See ye not with what cruel torments of penance
I seek to merit forgiveness for my sins? Will ye not
ease the sharp anguish of this scourge that woundeth
my back and maketh me to bleed?"

"Who is this mad man?" said the troopers.

"Friends," answered Ulenspiegel, "I am not mad,
but repentant and famished; for while my spirit

And Lamme Goedzak 311

weepeth for its guilty crimes, my belly weepeth its lack
of meat. Blessed soldiers, and you, fair damsels, I
see there among you fat ham, goose, sausages, wine,
beer, tartlets. Will you not give somewhat to the
pilgrim ? "

"Aye, aye," said the Flemish troopers, "he has a
good old phiz, the preacher."

And all began to throw pieces of food to him like
balls. Ulenspiegel ceased not to talk, and went on
eating, sitting astride the bough.

"Hunger," said he, "maketh man hard-hearted and
unfit for prayer, but ham taketh away this evil humour
all of a sudden."

"Look out, crackpot!" said a troop sergeant, throw-
ing him a bottle half full.

Ulenspiegel caught the bottle in the air, and drinking
by little sips, said:

"If a sharp and raging hunger is a thing harmful
to the poor body of a man, there is another thing as
hurtful, and that is the anguish of a poor pilgrim to
whom generous soldiers have given, one a slice of ham,
the others a bottle of beer. For the pilgrim is sober by
his custom, and if he drank and had in his inside such
scanty and trifling nourishment, he would be drunk
immediately."

As he spoke, he caught once again a goose's thigh
in the air.

"This," said he, "is a thing miraculous, to fish
meadow fish out of the air. But it has disappeared,
bone and all. What is greedier than dry sand? A
barren woman and a famished stomach."

Suddenly he felt a halberd point prick him in the
seat. And he heard an ensign say:

312 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

" Do pilgrims disdain a leg of mutton for the nonce ? "

Ulenspiegel saw, spitted on the blade of the halberd,
a big knuckle bone. Taking it he said:

"I will make a marrow flute of it to sing thy praises,
compassionate halberdier. And yet," said he, eating
at the knuckle bone, "what is a meal without dessert,
what is a knuckle bone, however succulent, if after
it the pilgrim doth not. behold a tartlet displaying its
blessed face?"

Saying this he put up his hand to his face, for two
tartlets coming from the group of girls had flattened
themselves out, one on his eye, the other on his cheek.
And the girls laughed and Ulenspiegel answered:

"All thanks, sweet damsels, who give me accolades
of sweetmeats."

But the tartlets had fallen to the ground.

Suddenly the drums beat, the fifes squealed, and the
soldiers resumed their march.

Messire de Beauvoir bade Ulenspiegel come down
from his tree and march beside the troop from which
he would fain have been a hundred leagues, for from
the talk of some sour-faced troopers he scented that
they were suspicious of him, that they would before
long seize him for a spy, would search him and hang
him if they found his letters.

And so, letting himself tumble into a ditch, he cried:

"Pity, soldiers; my leg is broken, I cannot walk
farther, let me get up into the women's cart."

But he knew that the jealous hoer-wyfel would never
allow it.

The girls called to him from their cart:

"Now, come up, dear pilgrim, come. We will love
you, caress you, feast you, heal you all in one day."

And Lamme Goedzak 313

"I know," said he, "a woman's hand is a heavenly
balm for every wound."

But the jealous hoer-zvyfel, speaking to Messire de
Lamotte:

"Messire," said he, "I believe that this pilgrim is
fooling us with his broken leg, to get into the cart of
the women. Give orders to leave him in the road."

"That is my will," said Messire de Lamotte.

And Ulenspiegel was left in the ditch.

Certain troopers, believing that he had really broken
his leg, were sorry for it because of his jollity. They
left him meat and wine enough for two days. The
girls would fain have gone to help him, but not being
able to, they threw him all the castrelins they had left.

The band was far away; Ulenspiegel made across
the fields in his pilgrim's robes, bought a horse, and by
highways and byways he came like the wind to Bois-
le-Duc.

At the news of the coming of Messires de Beauvoir and
de Lamotte, the townspeople took arms to the number
of eight hundred, chose captains for them, and des-
patched Ulenspiegel to Antwerp disguised as a coalman
to ask help from the Drinking Hercules, Brederode.

And the troopers of Messires de Lamotte and de
Beauvoir could not come into Bois-le-Duc, a city armed
and watchful, and ready for a stout defence.

XIX

The following month, a certain doctor, Agileus, gave
Ulenspiegel two florins and letters with which he was
to betake himself to Simon Praet, who would tell him
what he had to do.

314 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

At Praet's, Ulenspiegel found food and shelter. He
slept well, and well liking was his face in the flower of
youth; Praet, on the contrary, with a wretched and
pitiful mien, seemed for ever locked in with melancholy
thoughts. And Ulenspiegel was astonished to hear
by night, if by any chance he awoke, the noise of ham-
mering.

However early he might rise, Simon Praet was up
before him, and more pitiful his look, sadder still his
eyes, gleaming like a man's making ready for death or
for battle.

Often Praet sighed, clasping his hands for prayer,
and ever seemed rilled with indignation. His fingers
were black and greasy, and so, too, were his arms and
his shirt.

Ulenspiegel determined to discover whence came the
hammering, and the black arms and the melancholy
of Praet. One night, having been at the Elauwe Cans,
the tavern of the Blue Goose, in company with Simon
who was there against his will, he feigned to be so
drunk and to have so much in his head that he must
needs take it incontinently to his pillow.

And Praet brought him home mournfully.

Ulenspiegel slept in the garret, under the cats;
Simon's bed was below, near the cellar.

Ulenspiegel, continuing his drunken feigning, went
climbing staggering up the stairs, pretending to be about
to fall and holding on by the rope. Simon helped him
with tender care, like a brother. Having put him to
bed, condoling with him for his drunkenness, and praying
God to be good enough to forgive him, he came down,
and soon Ulenspiegel heard the same noise of hammer-
ing that had awakened him many times.

And Lamme Goedzak 315

Getting up noiselessly, he went barefoot down the
narrow stairs, so that after two and seventy steps he
found himself in front of a low little door, through the
chinks of which filtered a thread of light.

Simon was printing broadsides on the old types of
the time of Laurens Coster, the great fosterer of the
noble art of printing.

"What dost thou there?" asked Ulenspiegel.

Simon answered in affright:

"If thou art on the devil's side, denounce me, that I
may die; but if thou art on God's side let thy mouth
be prison to thy tongue."

"I am on God's side," replied Ulenspiegel, "and wish
thee no evil. What dost thou?"

"I am printing Bibles," answered Simon. "For
if by day to keep my wife and my children I publish
the cruel and wicked edicts of His Majesty, by night I
sow the true word of God and thus repair the ill I did
during the day."

"Thou art brave," said Ulenspiegel.

"I have the faith," replied Simon.

In very deed, it was from this holy printing shop
that there issued the Bibles in Flemish that were dis-
tributed through the countries of Brabant, of Flanders,
Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Noord-Brabant, Over-
Yssel, Gelderland, until the day when Simon was con-
demned to have his head cut off, thus finishing his
life for Christ.

XX

Simon said one day to Ulenspiegel:

"Listen, brother, hast thou courage?"

"I have enough," replied Ulenspiegel, "to serve

316 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

to flog a Spaniard to the death, to kill an assassin, to
destroy a murderer."

"Could you," asked the printer, "stay patiently in a
chimney place to hear what is said in a room?"

Ulenspiegel made answer: — "Having by the grace of
God, strong loins and supple knees, I can stay a long
while as I please, like a cat."

"Hast thou patience and a good memory?" asked
Simon.

"The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast," answered
Ulenspiegel.

"Hearken, then," said the printer; "you shall take
this playing card folded in this wise, and you shall go
to Dendermonde and knock twice loudly and once
softly at the door of the house whose outward appear-
ance is here limned. One will open to you and ask
if you are the chimney sweeper; you shall answer that
you are thin and that you have not lost the card.
You shall then show him the card. And then, Thyl,
you shall do your duty. Great woes hover above the
land of Flanders. A chimney will be shown to you,
prepared and swept in advance; you will find in it
good climbing irons for your feet, and for your seat
a little wooden board firmly stayed. When the one
that opened the door to you bids you climb into the
chimney, you shall do so, and there you shall remain
quiet and still. Illustrious lords will meet within the
chamber, before the chimney in which you will be.
They are William the Silent, Prince of Orange, the
Counts of Egmont, Hoorn, Hoogstraeten, and Ludwig
of Nassau, the valiant brother of the Silent One.
We of the reformed faith would know what these lords
will and can undertake in order to save the country."

And Lamme Goedzak 317

Now on the first of April Ulenspiegel did as he had
been bidden, and posted himself in the chimney. He
was satisfied to see that no fire burned in it, and thought
that, having no smoke, he would thus have better
hearing.

Presently, the door of the chamber opened, and he
was pierced through and through by a gust of wind.
But he took this wind patiently, saying that it would
freshen his attentiveness.

Then he heard the lords of Orange, Egmont, and the
others come into the chamber. They began to speak
of their fears, of the king's anger and the bad adminis-
tration of the public moneys and finances. One of
them spoke in sharp, haughty clear tones; that was
Egmont. Ulenspiegel recognized Hoogstraeten by his
hoarse voice; De Hoorn by his big voice; Count Louis
of Nassau by his firm and warrior-like speaking; and
the Silent One, by his pronouncing all his words slowly
as if he had first weighed every one in a balance.

The Count of Egmont asked why they were brought
together a second time, while at Hellegat they had had
leisure to determine on what they meant to do.

De Hoorn replied:

"The hours go by swiftly, the king grows angry;
let us take care not to waste time."

The Silent One said then:

"The countries are in danger; we must defend them
against the attack of an army of foreigners."

Egmont replied, growing angry, that he found it
astonishing that the king his master should think it
necessary to send an army there, at a time when all
was pacified by the care of the lords and especially by
himself.

318 The Legend of Ulenspiegel

But the Silent:

"Philip hath in the Low Countries fourteen bands
of regulars, of whom all the soldiers are devoted to
him who commanded at Gravelines and at Saint
Quentin."

"I do not understand," said Egmont.

The prince went on :

"I do not wish to say more, but there will be read to
you and the assembled lords certain letters, those from
the poor prisoner Montigny to begin with.

"In these letters, Messire de Montigny wrote:

" 'The king is exceeding wroth at what has come to
pass in the Low Countries, and he will punish the abet-
tors of trouble at a given hour.' '

Herewith the Count of Egmont said that he was cold
and that it would be well to light a great fire of wood.
That was done while the two lords discussed the letters.

The firedid not catch becauseof the over-great stopper
that was in the chimney, and the chamber was filled
with smoke.

The Count of Hoogstraeten then read, coughing, the
intercepted letters of Alava, the Spanish Ambassador,
addressed to the Lady Governor.

"The Ambassador," said he, "writes that all the ill
that has befallen the Low Countries has come from the
doings of three men: to wit, Orange, Egmont, and
Hoorn. We must, says the Ambassador, show a fair
face to these three lords and tell them that the king
recognizes that he holds these countries in his obedience
through their services. As for the two single ones,
Montigny and De Berghes, they are in the place where
they ought to be."

"Ah," said Ulenspiegel, "I like better a smoky

And Lamme Goedzak 319

chimney in Flanders than a cool, airy prison in Spain:
for garrottes spring up out of the damp walls."

"The said Ambassador adds that the king said in the
city of Madrid:

" 'By all that hath come to pass in the Low Countries
our royal reputation is diminished, the service of God
is disparaged, and we shall rather expose all our other
lands than leave such a rebellion unpunished. We
are determined to go in person to the Low Countries
and to request the help of the Pope and of the Emperor.
Under the present evil lies the future good. We will
reduce the Low Countries under our absolute sway, and
will change and modify to our mind state, religion, and
government.' '

"Ah! Philip King," said Ulenspiegel to himself,
"if I could in my mode modify thee, thou shouldst
undergo a great modification of thy thighs, arms, and
legs under my Flemish cudgel; I should fasten thy head
in the middle of thy back with two nails to see whether
in that state, looking at the graveyard thou leavest
behind thee, thou wouldst sing in thine own fashion
thy song of tyrannical modifying."

Wine was brought in. D'Hoogstraeten rose and said :
"I drink to the countries!" All followed his example,
and putting his tankard down empty on the table, he
added: "The evil hour strikes for the Belgian nobles.
We must take thought for means ofdefendingourselves."

Waiting for an answer, he looked at Egmont, who
uttered not a word.

But the Silent One spoke: "We will resist," said
he, "if Egmont who twice, at Saint Quentin and at
Gravelines, made France tremble, who has all authority
over the Flemish soldiers, will come to our rescue

320 The Legend oj Ulenspiegel

and prevent the Spaniard from coming into our
countries."

Messire d'Egmont replied : " I think of the king with
too much respect to believe that we must arm our-
selves like rebels against him. Let those who fear his
anger draw back. I will remain, having no way cf
living save by his help."

"Philip may take cruel vengeance," said the Silent.

"I have complete trust!" answered Egmont.

"Your head included?" asked Ludwig of Nassau.

"Included," replied Egmont, "head, body, and loyal
devotion, which are his."

"Trusty and well-beloved, I will do even as thou,"
said De Hoorn. Said the Silent:

"We must foresee and not wait."

Then Messire d'Egmont, speaking vehemently, "1
have," said he, "had two and twenty reformed hanged
at Grammont. If the preachings come to an end, if
the image breakers are punished, the king's anger will
be appeased."

The Silent replied:

"There are hopes that are uncertain."

"Let us put on the armour of trust," said Egmont.

"Let us put on the armour of trust," said De Hoorn.

"It is iron we should arm with, not trust," replied
D'Hoogstraeten.

Hereupon the Silent made a sign that he wished to go.

"Adieu, Prince without land!" said Egmont.

"Adieu, Count without a head!" replied the Silent.
Ludwig of Nassau said then: "For the sheep the
butcher, and glory for the soldier that is the saviour
of the land of our fathers!"

"I cannot, and will not," said Egmont.

And Lamme Goedzak 321

"Blood of the victims," said Ulenspiegel, "fall upon
the head of the courtier!"

The lords withdrew.

Then Ulenspiegel came down out of his chimney and
went immediately to bring the news to Praet. The
latter said: "Egmont is a traitor, God is with the
Prince."

The Duke! the Duke in Brussels! Where are the
strong boxes that have wings?

END OF VOL. I

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